April 18, 2007 — Associated Press reports that on Tuesday U.S. marshals and FDA investigators began seizing heart valves and other implantable medical devices made from cow and pig tissue by a New Jersey company because of concerns about their sterility.

April 17, 2007 — E-Z-EM Inc. has announced it has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for its EmpowerMR injector system — the company's first product for the magnetic resonance (MR) imaging market.

EmpowerMR has the same easy-to-use interface and robust safety features as the company's other Empower injector line. EmpowerMR also employs several innovative features designed to cope with the problem of electrical interference in the magnetic field of the MR scanner.

April 17, 2007 — Canadian researchers have learned that about one quarter of heart failure patients have moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea and they also have significantly higher death rates than those without sleep apnea.

Dr. Hanqiao Wang and colleagues at the University of Toronto in Ontario conducted a study of 164 patients who were referred to the Heart Failure Clinic of Mt. Sinai Hospital between 1997 and December 2004. Standard sleep tests were performed to diagnose sleep apnea.

April 17, 2007 — ZOLL Medical Corp. announced the top winners of the ZOLL CPR Challenge that took place in the company's booth during the recent EMS Today Conference and Expo 2007 in Baltimore, including two youths who out-performed many professionals in the hour in which they competed. Two-hundred and forty-five (245) attendees performed more than 40,000 chest compressions over the course of the conference.

April 16, 2007 — Boston Scientific Corp. has announced it has resolved the deficiencies in the warning letter issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Guidant Corp. on Dec. 22, 2005, and that all associated restrictions have been removed. Boston Scientific acquired Guidant last year.