March 20, 2017 — Teleflex Inc. recently announced 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. commercial launch of the Spectre Guidewire.

The Spectre Guidewire is engineered with a smooth stainless steel-to-nitinol dual-core transition that balances strength and agility. It is a 0.014-inch guidewire available in 190 cm and 300 cm lengths with a distal hydrophilic coating and a proximal PTFE coating.

March 20, 2017 — Agfa HealthCare announced the release a new version of its Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology platform at the American College of Cardiology ACC.17 expo, March 17-19 in Washington, D.C. Customer-driven enhancements include new structured reporting modules for congenital echocardiology and nuclear cardiology.

March 20, 2017 — Cardiologists can now access the advanced ultrasound imaging technology needed for fast and confident diagnoses with Toshiba Medical’s Aplio i900. The newly U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared system is the latest addition to the premium Aplio i-series ultrasound platform with excellent imaging clarity and definition.


March 20, 2017 — For patients experiencing angina (chest pain) or a heart attack, instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) was equivalent to the current gold standard of fractional flow reserve (FFR) in assessing the hemodynamic severity of coronary lesions. Two key late-breaking trials presented at the 2017 American College of Cardiology (ACC) meeting this weekend showed iFR vs. FFR had same incidence of major adverse. The studies also showed iFR had much less patient discomfort and reduced procedure-related adverse events compared to FFR. 



March 20, 2017 — The most important late-breaking pharmaceutical trial at the 2017 America College of Cardiology annual meeting this weekend was FOURIER (Further Cardiovascular Outcomes Research with PCSK9 Inhibition in Subjects with Elevated Risk). Evolocumab (Repatha), one of the new targeted PCSK9 inhibitor drugs has been show to dramatically lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and significantly lower cardiovascular events in patients with existing heart or vascular disease already on statin therapy. 


March 17, 2017 - Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) was found to be noninferior to surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in intermediate risk patients according to data presented today for the late-breaking SURTAVI Trial. The primary composite endpoint of all-cause mortality and disabling stroke at 24 months was similar for patients with symptomatic, severe aortic stenosis who had an intermediate level of operative risk.

W. L. Gore & Associates Inc. recently announced the Health Canada approval of the Gore Tigris Vascular Stent, a dual-component stent with a fluoropolymer/nitinol design. The device, which gained CE Mark approval in 2011, is a third-generation, self-expanding stent that was designed explicitly to improve anatomical conformability with the natural movement of the knee when treating peripheral artery disease (PAD).

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