Rumors and theories about an acquisition of Volcano Corporation (NASDAQ: VOLC) had been circulating for quite some time: months, years even. The company seemed an obvious choice: it has an advanced intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) technology that leads the market, with Boston Scientific coming in second; it has a fractional flow reserve (FFR) wire that splits the market with St. Jude Medical; and recently Volcano gained FDA approval for its Instant Wave-Free Ratio (iFR) physiologic measurement product, a faster, cheaper potential alternative to FFR. Continue reading
Category Archives: ACC
Philips Buys Volcano: It’s About Money, Technology, and History
Will a Denial of Service DOS Attack Hit New York State Medicaid Patients? Or Perhaps Your State?
What does a Denial of Service Attack have to do with stents, angioplasty and PCI?
In the world of computing, a DOS attack is defined as “an attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users.” Typically netbots programmed by hackers overwhelm the web servers of banks, credit card providers, etc. whose sites then become unavailable to their customers. Now it seems similarly that in New York State, cardiovascular treatments may become unavailable to some Medicaid patients: a denial of service. Continue reading
Another Viewpoint on Renal Denervation and SYMPLICITY HTN-3 from Dr. Darrel Francis
Symplicity Renal Denervation System
Is the failure of the SYMPLICITY HTN-3 trial to meet its efficacy endpoint the “end of the road” for renal denervation? Will renal denervation now land on the heap of failed technologies? I don’t think so, and Dr. Darrel Francis, the cardiologist who famously predicted that SYMPLICITY HTN-3 would not meet its endpoint, agrees.
In fact Dr. Francis told Angioplasty.Org that it would be a “grave error” if the FDA withheld renal denervation from the American people, based on this news!
OK. Do I have your attention? Continue reading
Filed under ACC, Global Trends, High Blood Pressure, Media Coverage
R.I.P. Angioplasty 1977-2013 – Really?
Nortin M. Hadler, MD, MACP, MACR, FACOEM
I’m in shock. Dr. Nortin Hadler of the University of North Carolina has proclaimed that the era of coronary angioplasty is over.
Poor, poor angioplasty…you were barely 36 years old, but you’re no longer needed. Guess we’re going to have to find a new name for our web site!
Of course, my first thought upon seeing this Op-Ed piece posted today on The Health Care Blog was that it was yet another article railing against the overuse of stents in patients with stable angina. Continue reading
Filed under ACC, Clinical Trials / Studies, Heart Attack, Media Coverage, Meetings & Conferences, Stent
New Improved ACCF/AHA Guidelines Task Force: Now with Patients!
The ACCF/AHA Clinical Practice Guideline Methodology Summit Report was just released, after more than a year of work. And at the top of the list of recommendations is the inclusion of a patient representative.
You can read all about this in our new patient blog, “The Activated Patient,” including comments from Drs. Deepak L. Bhatt and Ralph G. Brindis, who served on the Workgroups for this report. Continue reading
Filed under ACC, Patient Empowerment, Patients, Shared Decision-Making
The Activated Patient Blog Launches
Partnering with informed patients is a central tenant of the newly released joint 2012 Guidelines For Diagnosis and Management of Patients with Stable Ischemic Disease, as well as SCAI’s consensus update on Ad-Hoc PCI. And new studies about angioplasty and stents are being presented regularly that call for shared decision-making: for example, the OVER study, showing that endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms with stent grafts is equivalent to open surgery, the FREEDOM study discussing the options for multivessel disease in diabetic patients, and FAME 2 for the treatment of stable heart disease with significant ischemia as measured by fractional flow reserve. Patient preference comes into play in all of these. Continue reading
Stents, Trials and Studies: What’s in a Word?
Today the editors of the HEART Group Journals, comprising the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and other participating cardiovascular publications, issued a “Statement on Matching Language to the Type of Evidence Used in Describing Outcomes Data.”
Although the title of the article may be a bit yawn-inducing, the editors deserve a kudo or two for attempting to clarify reporting on medical issues. Continue reading
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