I will drop Vaso T/A comments and discuss the recent comments about EECP.
As far as I understand, EECP is NOT for patients over 80 y.o. because: there are NO studies completed with EECP in this age group AND you need a certain muscle mass in the legs to get the full benefit of the counterpulsation. A minority of 80 y.o. have enough muscle mass at their age to benefit from counterpulsation, and if they have a good muscle mass, they are probably able to exercise on their own.
Exercise is by definition, better than EECP, which is passive BUT... many patients cannot exercise because of their angina and/or musculo-skeletal problems. That is in this latter group that EECP is benificial (by "jump starting" patients back into a better lifestyle, which would allow them to exercise on their own)
Cardiomedics, was said to have a "more portable" system a year ago, but, unfortunately (!) WITHOUT visible diastolic augmentation(!) at the American Heart Association in November 1996 (!). As far as I know, they are trying to mimics EECP but have no large studies. For insurance reimbursment, VASO should thefore, have an edge. Cardiomedics appears to me to be a Vasomedical "copycat/trying to improve" company at this point,.... not investing in large trials themselves. Of course, they can keep some cash that way and reap the benefits from Vasomedical exercises.... But remember, Vasomedical has, theoreticlaly, the whole China experience behind them. I would not discount Vaso to quickly as, technically one should not discard China as a potential manufacturer and improvement company for Vasomedical. Let's face it, we are not talking about DNA recombination technology here and chinese could crank up some improved systems in no time (just a guess here).
Speaking of "gene therapy", it remains just ... promising, at this point. As discussed in the past, gene therapy will be probably effective by a local treatment while a "systemic" pill will have too many undesirable side effects at other sites in the body. If you know an unfortunate cancer patient, you will see that they are still given medieval type of medications which almost kill them because of their systemic effects (bone marrow suppression and so forth) and that "bioengeneered magic bullets" are still amazingly rare after decades of cancer research. And cancer appears actually (to me) to be easier to treat because a tumor is sooooo different than our body itself,.... as compared to the attempt to grow locally small vessels,... vessels that are present everywhere in our body. Thinking of it: isn't it right that diabetic patients have small blood vessel proliferation here and there (especially retina) and that adult onset diabetic patients are in a state of small blood vessel dilatation because of, "technically speaking" a lack of local nutrients.... which itself is due to a insulin resistance state (I have to verify that) AND YET.... they have MORE angina and heart attacks.... go figure!.
At my level of understanding, I predict that bioengeneered molecules will have to be delivered locally (by a catheter, I presume) which will still be an invasive technique. Lastly, remember that local mechanisms to increase small vessel growth are allready at play in coronary arteries of angina patients (!) because of the underlying chronic lack of oxygen at the level of the heart muscle... and that the major adjunct to help those is exercise as far as we know. Therefore, EECP type of treatment should be a help to jumpstart patients back into a better condition.
Regarding T/A: the trend is still down. Be carefull if you are trying to go against the trend and buy dips (you know the expression of "trying to catch falling daggers"....). Then again, you could "play" and make some profit on these significant oscillations of the Vaso share price.
Just IMHO and my 2 cts.
Good luck all.
Gaston |
