Landmark Trial Provides Vital Information for Cardiac Disease Treatment

Landmark Trial Provides Vital Information for Cardiac Disease Treatment

NorthShore University HealthSystem Ted Feldman, M.D., Lead Investigator

Evanston, IL. -- NorthShore University HealthSystem (http://www.northshore.org/) (NorthShore) has played a leading role in a landmark clinical trial comparing two forms of treatment for patients with severe coronary artery disease (CAD). The results were published on-line in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The SYNTAX trial was a clinical research study that compared percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents and coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) in patients with three-vessel and left main coronary disease. The trial results did not show any statistically significant differences between PCI and CABG in rates of death or heart attack, an excess of stroke in the CABG treated patients, and a greater need for repeat PCI procedures in the stent treated patients. These are better outcomes for PCI than have been seen in prior trials in less complex patients.

"At NorthShore, we experienced stunning outcomes in patients whose only option would have previously been bypass surgery," said Ted Feldman, M.D, F.S.C.A.I., Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, NorthShore University HealthSystem, and a lead investigator of the trial. "The data in this study will provide cardiologists with additional information as they determine treatment therapy for patients with complex CAD."

The trial is the first randomized, controlled clinical trial to compare these two treatments in patients with left main disease and/or three-vessel disease, who are typically treated with CABG and represent a population with far more complex anatomy and advanced disease than those studied in prior drug-eluting stent (DES) clinical trials.

There were 1,800 patients enrolled in the randomized arm of the trial. All patients were assessed by a multidisciplinary team including an interventional cardiologist and a cardiac surgeon. If both the cardiologist and surgeon felt that they could offer equivalent complete revascularization, patients were randomized 1:1 into one of the two treatment strategies. If either the cardiologist or surgeon felt that one or the other revascularization technique was the preferred option, due to technical considerations or co-morbidity, for example, then patients were recruited into one of two parallel, nested registries for PCI or CABG. Thus, patients in the PCI registry had been rejected for cardiac surgery.

About NorthShore University HealthSystem

Headquartered in Evanston, Ill., NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) is a comprehensive, fully integrated, healthcare delivery system that serves the greater North Shore and northern Illinois communities. The system includes three Hospitals--Evanston Hospital, Glenbrook Hospital and Highland Park Hospital--and a fourth, Skokie-based Rush North Shore Hospital, to be added in January 2009. In addition, the healthsystem has more than 2,000 affiliated physicians, including a 550-physician, multispecialty physician group practice with over 70 office locations-- NorthShore University HealthSystem Medical Group. Further, NorthShore is committed to excellence in its academic mission and supports teaching and research as the principal teaching affiliate of the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. The NorthShore University HealthSystem Research Institute, with more than $100 million of grants, focuses on clinical and translational research, including leadership in outcomes research and clinical trials.

NorthShore has annual revenues of $1.5 billion and a staff of more than 8,000. The healthsystem has significant capabilities in a wide spectrum of clinical programs, including cancer, heart, orthopaedics, high-risk maternity and pediatrics. NorthShore is a national leader in the implementation of innovative technologies, including electronic medical records, (EMR ). In 2003, the healthsystem was among the first in the country to successfully launch a systemwide EMR with demonstrable benefits in quality, safety, efficiency and service to patients. NorthShore has been recognized by multiple national organizations for this notable achievement. Visit http://www.northshore.org/

CONTACT: Amy Ferguson

Senior Director, Public Relations

NorthShore University HealthSystem

(847) 570-3146

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Contact Information Amy Ferguson

Northshore University HealthSystem

http://www.northshore.org/

847-570-3146

Tekscan Announces High-Temp Force Sensors

Tekscan Announces High-Temp Force Sensors

Tekscan, Inc., leading manufacturer of force and pressure measurement sensors, is pleased to announce the release of the new High-Temp FlexiForce® Sensor (Model # HT201). This sensor measures forces in environments as hot as 200° Celsius (400° Fahrenheit).

Boston, MA (PRWEB) February 18, 2009 -- Tekscan, Inc., leading manufacturer of force and pressure measurement sensors, is pleased to announce the release of the new High-Temp FlexiForce® Sensor (Model # HT201), measuring forces in environments as hot as 200° Celsius (400° Fahrenheit).

The ultra-thin, highly-linear (typically +/-1.2%) High-Temp FlexiForce sensors are ideal for non-intrusive force measurement in a variety of processing applications, including injection molding, heat sealing, and heat sink applications. Industries that will benefit from these high-temperature force measurements include automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical, printing, food and beverage processing, and many more.

Specifically, the sensors are used to:

•Detect and measure a relative change in force or applied load

•Detect and measure the rate of change in force

•Identify force thresholds and trigger appropriate action

•Detect contact and/or touch

The HT201 sensor is available in two force ranges, Low and High:

HT201-L (0-30 lb)

HT201-H (0-100 lb)

Click here for complete high-temp sensor specifications. (http://www.tekscan.com/flexiforce/specs-flexiforce.html)

About Tekscan

Tekscan is a leading manufacturer of thin-film force sensors and complete tactile force and pressure measurement systems. Accurate, simple-to-use, and cost-effective, Tekscan's sensors have been integrated into a variety of successful OEM products. Measuring both static and dynamic pressure events, Tekscan's products provide concrete data for making crucial assessments in industrial, medical, dental, and retail applications. Products range from simple force sensors and force sensing systems to intricate pressure measurement systems with over 100,000 sensing points. Contact Tekscan today (http://www.tekscan.com/contact.html) to discuss your application or to place an order.

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Contact Information Liz Hood

Tekscan, Inc.

http://www.tekscan.com

617.464.4500

Statins Pay Off on a Health-Policy Level, UCSF Study Finds

Statins Pay Off on a Health-Policy Level, UCSF Study Finds

Current guidelines for when to prescribe popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins would produce cost-effective results and would save thousands of lives every year if they were followed more closely by physicians and patients, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

(Vocus) February 17, 2009 -- Current guidelines for when to prescribe popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins would produce cost-effective results and would save thousands of lives every year if they were followed more closely by physicians and patients, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

The authors used a cost-effectiveness model called the Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Policy Model to assess the incremental cost-effectiveness over a 30-year period of lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol with statins in persons who have not previously had a heart attack (http://cardiology.ucsf.edu).

Findings are published in the February 17 issue of the "Annals of Internal Medicine," the official journal of the American College of Physicians. The paper is accompanied by a supporting editorial that cites both the importance of the study and the importance of cost-effectiveness analysis, in general, as a method for comparing strategies to improve health.

The study found that adherence to the 2001 recommendations from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) would be a cost-effective way to prevent and manage coronary heart disease in this country.

Full adherence with the guidelines would prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 10,000 CHD deaths every year, according to Mark Pletcher, MD, MPH, a professor in the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (www.epibiostat.ucsf.edu), who led the study. Although full adherence would require starting millions of Americans on statins, at a cost of $3.6 billion per year, the health payoff is large enough to justify the cost by current standards, he said.

"We weren't sure that NCEP guidelines, which are relatively aggressive in terms of recommending statins, would be the best approach," Pletcher said. "When we did the math, though, it turns out they are pretty reasonable in terms of health payoff, and are more efficient than some of the alternatives we tested."

The study also demonstrated how important the cost of statins is in the calculations. Pletcher said that when the price of statins falls below about 50 cents per pill, the NCEP guidelines prevent enough heart attacks and save enough in hospital bills to make up the cost of the statin pills.

"As more and more people have access to generic statins at very low prices, statins will start paying for themselves," Pletcher said. "And when per-pill costs are very low, it may actually make sense to prescribe them even more broadly than is recommended in the NCEP guidelines."

Previous studies have shown that statin therapy is generally cost-effective for secondary prevention and for high-risk primary prevention of heart disease in specific scenarios, but have not previously analyzed the full impact or cost-effectiveness of NCEP guidelines, nor compared them to alternatives.

The CHD Policy Model used in this study was developed in the 1980's by Lee Goldman, MD, a co-author on the study. The model uses a wide range of national coronary heart disease data, including results from the 52-year Framingham Heart Study, to model cardiovascular disease events and prevention interventions in the U.S. population. The researchers sought to estimate the cost-effectiveness of the NCEP guidelines and compare them against alternative strategies, in which statin treatment might be based entirely on age or an assessment of 10-year CHD risk.

The projections were applied to US patients age 35 to 85 years old over the next three decades and results were compared against the prospects of retaining current levels of treatment and the "cost" of early death or chronic care among untreated patients.

"Policymakers in the United States need some basic principles to guide the nation's health care spending, which is excessive by many measures," wrote John B. Wong, MD, from the Tufts University School of Medicine, in the accompanying editorial. "The current fiscal crisis requires much greater attention to health care costs. Perhaps it will be the stimulus for the United States to adopt cost-effectiveness as a guiding principle for allocating resources within health care and between health care and other needs."

Funding of the research came from the Flight Attendants' Medical Research Institute and a grant from the Swanson Family Fund to UCSF. The Framingham Heart Study and Framingham Offspring Study are conducted and supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, in collaboration with both studies' investigators.

The senior investigator on the study is Lee Goldman, MD, MPH, of Columbia University Medical Center. Co-authors are Andrew Moran, MD, MPH, Columbia University; Kirsten Bibbings-Domingo, MD, PhD, UCSF; Pamela Coxson, PhD, UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital; James Lightwood, PhD, UCSF; Nicolas Rodondi, MD, MAS, University of Lausanne, Switzerland; Lawrence Williams, MSC, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and Lawrence Lazar, MD, Cleveland Clinic.

Rodondi has consulted for Pfizer Inc and has accepted honoraria from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck and Schering Plough. The authors report no other potential financial conflicts of interest.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. For further information, visit http://www.ucsf.edu.

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Contact Information Kristen Bole

http://www.ucsf.edu

415-476-2557