St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) tried to distance its Durata defibrillator leads from their troubled Riata predecessor and unveiled the results of the decade-long SCD-HeFT heart failure study during separate presentations at this year’s Heart Rhythm Society meeting in Boston, Mass.
Research & Development
DePuy’s BMJ fray: Is the hip maker showing its hand ahead of jury trials?
The quarrel between hip implant maker DePuy and researcher Deborah Cohen may be more than an academic altercation playing out in the pages of the esteemed British Medical Journal – it may be a preview of things to come.
DePuy hip battle wages on in the pages of the British Medical Journal
While the DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip recall has been playing out amid lawsuits and federal probes, another battle has been playing out on another, quieter front – the pages of the British Medical Journal.
The first annual Heart Rhythm Society worst accepted abstract award
As many of us head off the the Heart Rhythm Society’s 33rd Scientific Sessions in Boston, MA this week, we leave to see some of the best science of the year in our field. Abstracts, posters, discussions, Live Case demonstrations, – the whole works – will be there. Media will cover reports of late breaking clinical trials, the benefits of our new oral anticoagulants, the amazing clinical workings of the subcutaneous ICD, and late-breaking clinical trials filled with fantastic innovations and controversy.
Prostate cancer: To cut or not to cut?
Early results from a long-term study of prostate cancer patients concluded that removal of the gland barely increased the likelihood for survival in patients with low-risk tumors, concluding that the surgical approach "may be neither necessary nor effective."
Study: Faulty PIP breast implants may rupture in as many as 1 in 3 women | MassDevice.com On Call
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The substandard silicone breast implants that roused enormous controversy in the Europe may be more defective than previously determined, with one study concluding that 1 in 3 may be prone to rupture.
The implants, made by French manufacturer Poly Implant Prosthèse, were found to contain a non-authorized silicone gel that causes high rupture rates.
If it’s unnecessary, who cares which stent is better?
The Lancet in its latest edition has another “paradigm-shifting” study (its words) on whether invasive cardiologists should use bare metal or drug-eluting stents in people with coronary blockages. For those not following this issue, the medical literature has been bouncing like a yo-yo on the question of which stents — drug-eluting or bare-metal — are better at preventing thrombosis or blood clots that can form around the stents, which sometimes lead to heart attacks and require repeat operations.
St. Jude demands retraction of Hauser Riata report
St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) called for a retraction of a study by a prominent cardiologist attributing 22 deaths to short circuits in its Riata defibrillator leads.
Riata: St. Jude contests results of study finding 22 deaths from short circuits unrelated to exposed wires
St. Jude Medical‘s (NYSE:STJ) troubled Riata defibrillator leads were tied to 22 deaths related to short-circuits between high-voltage components, according to study conducted by the Minneapolis Heart Institute.