It has been a while since someone has posted, any news today?? MDT sure is acting weak lately. They continue to report good news:
New Studies Confirm that Implantable Defibrillators Save More
Lives than Drugs
ATLANTA, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) got a second boost
earlier today, when two international clinical studies confirmed their effectiveness at preventing sudden cardiac
death as compared to drug therapy. The studies, Cardiac Arrest Study Hamburg (CASH) and the Canadian
Implantable Defibrillator Study (CIDS), support a similar report recently published in the New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) called the Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillators Study (AVID). In
AVID, ICDs reduced death by 39 percent in the first year as compared to the death rate in patients treated
with antiarrhythmic drugs.
CASH, presented at sessions of the American College of Cardiology today by Dr. Karl Kuck of Hamburg,
Germany, enrolled 349 patients who were resuscitated from sudden cardiac death and randomized to either
an ICD or antiarrhythmic drug therapy. At two-year follow-ups, ICDs reduced mortality by 37 percent.
CIDS, which had a similar design to the AVID study, also supported the effectiveness of ICDs. Results of
CIDS indicate there was an overall mortality reduction for patients with ICDs of 20 percent.
''The ICD is widely acknowledged to be a major advance in the management of potentially lethal veritricular
arrhythmias,'' said Dr. Stuart Connolly, professor of medicine, University of McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario.
''When you view the CIDS results in light of the results from AVID and CASH, you have a solid case for the
use of ICDs in the prevention of sudden cardiac death.''
Each year 350,000 people in the U.S. experience sudden cardiac death events due to ventricular
tachyarrhythmias (VT), most do not survive. Most of these incidents are thought to have been caused by
ventricular fibrillation (VF), which is an abnormally fast or chaotic beating of the ventricles (lower chambers)
of the heart that prevents blood from being pumped out of the heart for distribution throughout the body.
ICDs bring the technology of external defibrillators used every day in emergency rooms across the nation into
the patient's chest. Once in place, an ICD constantly monitors the electrical conduction system of the heart.
When an arrhythmia is detected, the device automatically delivers appropriate therapy. ICDs detect
dangerous arrhythmias instantly and convert them to normal heart rhythm.
ICDs are typically about the size of a small pager and are implanted under the skin of the chest, like a
pacemaker. The procedure takes about an hour and patients are often discharged from the hospital after only
one day.
Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT - news), headquartered in Minneapolis, is the world's leading medical
technology company specializing in implantable and interventional therapies. Its Internet address is
www.medtronic.com. |
