A massive study released in January, which showed that doctors implant defibrillators in thousands of patients who don’t need them, has has little effect on the ICD market according to St. Jude Medical Inc. (NYSE:STJ) CEO Daniel Starks.

In a conference call with investors today, Stark said the “short answer is that those issues are very small issues … with little impact on the global CRM market.”

“When you look closely at the percent of the available population that is potentially impacted by the JAMA article, it amounted to just a very small percent of the total opportunity and really was not material on a total global basis when we look at the anticipated growth rate of the global CRM market,” Starks said.

He was responding to a question posed by JP Morgan analyst Michael Weinstein, who asked if the study (published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.) created any slowdown in ICD volumes, as was predicted when the study was first published.

The study reviewed 111,707 defibrillator implants and showed that 22.5 percent of patients fell short of medical guidelines required to receive the $25,000 devices. Although the review didn’t discern why doctors weren’t sticking to guidelines, author Dr. Sana M. Al-Khatib told the New York Times that physicians’ lack of knowledge and awareness of the guidelines were the likely culprits. The report sparked fears among some cardiac device makers that renewed scrutiny could have a chilling effect on sales.

That’s apparently not the case, according to St. Jude officials. The St. Paul, Minn.-based company reported a 9 percent bump in ICD sales during the first three months of 2011, to $762 million.

Group president Michael Rosseau added that the company has seen some account increase their “scrutiny relative to timing. But there’s been no meaningful or significant impact to the overall market.”