January 7, 2008 - An on-line vascular health activity book that teaches children ages 5-12 how their vascular system works is now available on www.vascularweb.org.

It uses “blood buddies” to teach children how the vascular system delivers oxygen and nutrients throughout their bodies and why they need to eat well and maintain an active lifestyle to keep it healthy. It stresses the importance of exercise, healthy eating, and not smoking through games and coloring pages.

January 7, 2008 – Patients with atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation may require additional sites of ablation to effectively treat their atrial fibrillation, according to a European-based study of atrial fibrillation patients treated with CryoCor’s Cardiac Cryoablation System, which was published in the December 11, 2007 issue of Circulation.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the role of atrial flutter in the recurrence of atrial fibrillation and the effectiveness of an ablation strategy focused on isolating the pulmonary veins to treat the atrial fibrillation.

January 7, 2008 - Imaging for early cardiovascular disease that causes heart attack and stroke is the focus of the High-Risk Plaque (HRP) Initiative, a new study to develop improved techniques for identifying individuals at risk for heart attacks and of advanced methods to monitor disease progression and treatment response.

January 3, 2008 - A study reported in the Jan. 3 New England Journal of Medicine found that one third of patients who had in-hospital cardiac arrest received delayed defibrillation, which is associated with lower rates of survival.

January 3, 2008 - Medical Simulation Corp. and Edwards Lifesciences Corp. will launch the Edwards SAPIEN Transcatheter Heart Valve (THV) Training Program in Europe to provide commercial product training for surgeons and cardiologists.

The Edwards SAPIEN transcatheter aortic heart valve with the RetroFlex transfemoral delivery system received CE Mark approval in September 2007, and the Edwards SAPIEN valve with the Ascendra transapical delivery system was CE approved in December 2007.

January 3, 2008 - A patient’s physical activity status is a significant and robust predictor of all-cause mortality in patients with varying levels of ambulatory function, according to a new study that compares death rates between active and sedentary patients who have peripheral artery disease (PAD) with intermittent claudication published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal for Vascular Surgery.

January 3, 2008 – Abiomed Inc. selected Tufts-New England Medical Center (Tufts-NEMC) as a “Center of Excellence” for its cardiac program, having achieved outstanding clinical outcomes with the recovery of the native heart.

As a Center of Excellence, Tufts-NEMC will share best practices related to VAD implantation and patient care with other hospitals and medical centers. This award is granted to top institutions in the country for achieving significant clinical outcomes and their focus on recovery of the native heart. Tufts-NEMC’s outcomes are among the best in the country.

January 3, 2008 - A modular stent graft that inserts multiple, caudally-directed branches to the visceral arteries to repair a thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) can offer a safer surgical method for patients in need of this surgery, according to a recent study in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

January 2, 2008 – Allergic-like reactions to gadolinium-containing contrast injections in adults and pediatric patients, under the age of 19, are rare, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan Health Systems in Ann Arbor, MI,.
Studying 78,353 gadolinium-containing contrast injections over five years, acute allergic-like reactions occurred after 54 injections, 48 reactions involved adults and six occurred in pediatric patients. Seventy-four percent of these reactions were mild, 19 percent were moderate and seven percent were marked as severe.

December 29, 2007 - Boston Scientific Corp. received CE Mark approval for its LIVIAN cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D), which treats heart failure and is designed to help protect patients at risk of sudden cardiac death by monitoring heartbeats in heart failure patients and delivering small electrical impulses that may improve the heart’s pumping ability.

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