Capping medical residency hours does not hamper new doctors’ quality of training
When new rules capped training hours for medical residents at 80 hours per week in 2003, critics worried that the change would leave physicians-in-training unprepared for the challenges of independent practice. New research, published today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and led by scientists in the Department of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, shows that these warnings were largely unjustified.
The analysis—believed to be the first national study examining the impact of reduced hours on physician performance—found no evidence that reduced training hours had any impact on the quality of care delivered by new physicians.
This is notable given that recent polling from a survey sent out by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) found that there was a significantly increased risk of experiencing burnout, characterised by depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion, for those interventional radiologists who work more than 80 hours per week.
Following a series of high-profile patient injuries and deaths believed to stem from clinical errors caused by fatigue, medical accreditation agencies initiated a series of sweeping changes to the regulations governing resident hours and other aspects of training. These efforts culminated in 2003 with the US Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education capping the training of medical residents at 80 hours per week.
“This is probably the most hotly debated topic in medical education among physicians,” says Anupam Jena, the HMS Ruth L Newhouse associate professor of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute, a physician in the department of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA), and lead author of the study. “Many doctors trained under the old system think that today’s residents do not get enough training under the new system. You hear a lot of senior physicians looking at younger doctors coming out of training and saying, ‘They are not as prepared as we were.’”
The findings of the study should assuage these fears, Jena believes.
The researchers found no significant differences in 30-day mortality, 30-day readmissions, or inpatient spending between physicians who completed their residency before and after the residency hour reforms.
“We found no evidence that the care provided by physicians who trained under the 80-hour-a-week model is suboptimal,” Jena comments.
Given the changes in hospital care over the past decade, the researchers knew that they could not just compare the difference between outcomes of recently trained doctors before and after the cap, since overall outcomes have improved thanks to better diagnoses and treatments, better coordination of care and new digital tools designed to prevent harmful drug interactions and other human errors.
Comparing new physicians trained before reform with those trained after would confound the effect of changes in training with the effect of overall changes in hospital care. To avoid conflating the two, the researchers compared new physicians before and after the reforms with senior physicians who had trained before the reform.
The study analysed 485,685 hospitalisations of Medicare patients before and after the reform. The training hour reforms were not associated with statistically significant differences in patient outcomes after the physicians left training.
For example, 30-day mortality rates among patients cared for by first-year attending internists during 2000–2006 and 2007–2012 were 10.6% (12,567 out of 118,014) and 9.6% (13,521 out of 140,529), respectively. In comparison, the 30-day mortality among patients cared for by tenth-year attending physicians was 11.2% (11,018 of 98,811) and 10.6% (13,602 of 128,331) for the same years.
Further statistical analysis to eliminate the unwanted effects of other variables showed that these differences translated into a less than 0.1%-point gap between the groups. The difference in hospital readmission rates was similarly minuscule: 20.4% for patients cared for by first-year physicians in both 2000–2006 and 2007–2012, compared with 20.1% and 20.5%, respectively, among patients treated by senior physicians.
Taken together, these findings suggest that US residency work hour reforms have not made a difference in the quality of physician training, Jena concludes.
As a way of magnifying any possible gaps in care stemming from a difference in training hours, the researchers looked specifically at outcomes for high-risk patients, in whom even small differences in quality of care would become apparent.
“We looked at patients who were particularly ill. In these cases, one little mistake could mean the difference between life and death,” Jena says. “Even for these sickest patients we found that the reduced training hours had no effect on patient mortality.”
Radiation therapy firm 
“Deep in my heart, I knew interventional radiology (IR) had a tremendous future,” Alex Tang tells Interventional News. Looking back at his career, Tang talks of setting up IR services in his native Malaysia, and, as the convenor of the 
Both Medtronic and BD have released statements in response to the 
Orchestra BioMed and 
A new indication for 
Post-procedural antibiotic use does not significantly affect infectious complication rates following uterine fibroid embolization (UFE), a recent pilot study concludes. Presenting these data at the Global Embolization Oncology Symposium Technologies (
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved expanded sizes of the 
A recent publication confirms “the utility of touchless image navigation in the sterile field in facilitating decision-making and resource allocation during endovascular procedures.” The study, published in Minimally Invasive Therapy & Allied Technologies, provides the third clinical review of TIPSO technology (NZ Technologies), a human-computer interaction based platform that allows real-time access to imaging data in the sterile field.
The 
ControlRad has announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510(k) clearance for its ControlRad Trace. The company has initiated its commercial launch. The ControlRad Trace is the only technology that can be integrated into existing mobile C-arms to reduce radiation in any fluoroscopic imaging procedure.
Proximo Medical has announced that it has been selected as the marketing and commercial partner for Walk Vascular, a medical device company that has developed JETi, a novel peripheral thrombectomy catheter.
iFR is an innovative pressure-derived index proprietary to Philips, allowing a simplified hyperaemia-free physiological assessment of coronary blockages. It continues to be adopted into clinical practice, states a Philips’ press release, with mounting evidence that this technology contributes to reducing costs, improving outcomes and enhancing the patient experience.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given 510(k) clearance to the ZOOM aspiration system (Imperative Care), a family of products designed to facilitate clot removal during 
The Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) has released a statement on the use of paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents in the treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) following the 
After coming across interventional radiology in a “fortunate accident”, the 2019–2020 
Appropriately trained interventional radiologists performing endovascular thrombectomy in technically complicated stroke cases achieve similar reperfusion and clinical outcomes to those reported in the published literature. This is the conclusion of Andrew Hines, an interventional radiologist at Northeast Charlotte Radiology, Charlotte, USA, presenting his data at the annual meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology (
The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) announced the establishment of the Grants for Education of Medical Students (GEMS) programme at its 2019 annual scientific meeting (23–28 March, Austin, USA). Alan H Matsumoto, former SIR president, introduced the programme during his acceptance speech for the SIR Gold Medal Award (for which he was one of three recipients). The GEMS programme aims to 
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510(k) clearance to the company DOSIsoft to market its Planet Onco Dose software, for its oncology and 
The National Kidney Foundation Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (NKF KDOQI) provides evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for haemodialysis vascular access and related complications, and has done so since 1997. The latest guidelines, published in 2006, no longer reflect the most recent evidence for the management of vascular access, causing the haemodialysis and vascular access community to eagerly await the revised recommendations, currently in the external review process and due in Spring 2019.
A 
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given premarket approval (PMA) for the MANTA vascular closure device from 
Experts from the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) have reviewed the recent meta-analysis by Katsanos and colleagues and have concluded that the methods are appropriate and within constraints of trial-level meta-analysis. However, the society statement says “it is important to note that SCAI believes the associations are hypothesis-generating and require further investigation with patient-level data.”
The CE Mark for the Nellix endovascular aneurysm sealing system (Endologix) has been suspended by its Notified Body, GMED, following 
The impact of the 
Dr Rosemary Byanyima is one of the most senior radiologists in Kampala, and was one of the first local radiologists to understand this problem and push for change. Thanks to Dr Byanyima and her team, we were able to organise the first assessment visit to understand how things work in the Mulago National Referral Hospital (MNRH). This is the largest public hospital in the country, with 1,500 beds. In 2014, an average of 80–100 babies were delivered daily, in the hospital’s three maternity wards. The Uganda Heart Institute and the Women’s Hospital are also nearby, and in combination with the Uganda Cancer Institute represent the spearhead of Uganda’s health-care system.
IZI Medical Products (IZI) has acquired select soft tissue biopsy and breast localisation needle assets from 
The Tack Optimised Balloon Angioplasty II below-the-knee (
The FDA has granted approval for BD’s 0.018-inch guidewire-compatible Lutonix 018 drug-coated balloon (DCB) for the treatment of long superficial femoral artery lesions in patients with peripheral artery disease.
The European Society of Radiology (ESR) and GE Healthcare are partnering on artificial intelligence for the upcoming 
Figure. The recommendations in the ESVS guidelines are based on the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) grading system.
Integrated interventional radiology has been listed among the American Medical Association’s (AMA) seven most competitive medical specialties in 2018.
President of the Interventional Radiology Society of Australasia (IRSA) and European Board of Interventional Radiology (EBIR) examiner for Australia and New Zealand, Gerard Goh emphasises the expanding transnational Interventional Radiology landscape, with “greater international collaboration” between major societies. Here, he speaks to Interventional News about how he knew he had found his calling in the “demanding yet rewarding” discipline of interventional radiology, the need to balance innovation with evidence-based clinical research, and how his passion for fast cars led to a stint as a Formula 1 doctor.
Boston Scientific has announced it has reached an agreement on the terms of a recommended offer to acquire BTG, a company headquartered in the United Kingdom, which develops and commercialises products used in minimally-invasive procedures targeting cancer and vascular diseases, as well as acute care pharmaceuticals. 
The first patients in Germany have been treated with its Stealth 360 Peripheral Orbital Atherectomy System (OAS; Cardiovascular Systems Inc). The German cases represent the first commercial use of Peripheral OAS in Europe.
In a joint, global position statement, the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Society of Europe (CIRSE) and the Interventional Radiology Society of Australasia (IRSA) have committed to providing necessary stroke training to interventional radiologists in order to alleviate the shortage of physicians trained in endovascular stroke therapies.
Eximo Medical has announced it has received 510(k) clearance from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for its B-Laser atherectomy system for peripheral arterial disease (PAD). B-Laser is a transformative 355nm wavelength laser technology designed to address unmet clinical needs for treating multiple vascular indications. The specific indication cleared by the FDA is: “The B-Laser atherectomy system is intended for use in the treatment, including atherectomy, of infrainguinal stenoses and occlusion, including in-stent restenosis (ISR).”
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Valiant Navion thoracic stent graft system (Medtronic) for the minimally invasive repair of all lesions of the descending thoracic aorta, including thoracic aortic aneurysms, blunt thoracic aortic injuries, penetrating atherosclerotic ulcers, intramural haematomas, and aortic type B dissections.
In terms of the configuration of stents for IVC reconstruction and the level of disease, three patients had unilateral iliac stents into the IVC, but the dominant group were either to the suprarenal component or a stent extension to the hepatic confluence.
Leeann Essai has joined Guerbet’s executive team as North American head of marketing.
Five-year results from a Japanese post-market surveillance study aimed at evaluating the Zilver PTX drug-eluting stent (DES) in a real-world population show consistently positive outcomes. The findings were presented for the first time at the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe 2018 meeting (CIRSE; 22–25 September, Lisbon, Portugal), by Kimihiko Kichikawa, Nara Medical University Hospital, Kashihara, Japan.
Twelve-month data prove that intravascular lithotripsy; a novel approach using pulsatile sonic pressure waves to modify intimal and medium calcium in stenotic peripheral arteries, is a safe and effective treatment option. This is the result of the Disrupt PAD II trial, presented by Andrew Holden, Auckland Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand, for the first time at the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe annual meeting (CIRSE; 22–25 September 2018, Lisbon, Portugal).
Cook Medical have announced that a new 5mm diameter version of 
Data from the European Board of Interventional Radiology (EBIR), as presented by O M van Delden at the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE; 22-25 September, Lisbon, Portugal) reveals that only 8% of EBIR-holders and 10-20% of CIRSE members are female. 
BTG has announced the global launch of its ICEfx cryoablation system. This is an evolution of the existing Visual ICE system, and according to Peter Pattison, head of Interventional Oncology at 
Cardiovascular Systems Inc.
Cook Medical has announced that it received a close-out letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) resolving a 2014 warning letter for processes related to the quality system at the company’s manufacturing facility in Bloomington (Indiana, USA). A company press release states that the resolution was a direct result of the company’s employees’ efforts to improve Cook Medical’s quality system over the last four years.
Avinger
Gore have announced the first implant in conjunction with the Gore ARISE study of the Gore Ascending Stent Graft, an investigational device and the only endovascular stent graft specifically designed to treat type A dissections of the ascending aorta. The successful procedure took place on August 14, 2018 at Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston (USA), by Anthony Estrera, and Bruce Tjaden, as part of the Gore ARISE study.
Interventional radiologists issued a red alert warning over staff shortages in Scotland as the only full-time specialists based in the Scottish Highlands step down. The Scottish Government has been urged to answer for “unacceptable failings”.
EchoNous Vein (EchoNous), an ultrasound-based tool designed specifically for nurses to improve peripheral IV catheter placements, has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Terumo has announced receiving the CE mark for its Kanshas drug-coated balloon catheter used in the treatment of lower extremity peripheral arterial disease. 
The opening plenary at the World Conference on Interventional Oncology (WCIO; 7–10 June, Boston, USA) put biopsy, which is considered a mundane procedure by some interventional radiologists, at the heart of cancer diagnosis and personalised treatment. Many experts see that doing a biopsy well could establish a fruitful collaboration with referring medical and surgical oncologists.
Stephen B Solomon, chief, Interventional Radiology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA and president of the Society for Interventional Oncology (SIO) talks personalised medicine, immunotherapy and how being a cancer consultant helps make treatment decisions that are not desperation oncology with Interventional News. “Two big challenges [for interventional oncology] are demonstrating clinical data to support our work and ensuring high quality. Compared to other cancer specialties such as radiation oncology, interventional oncology has not been well organised […] this is one of the pressing issues that led to the formation of the SIO,” he explains.
Guerbet has announced the upcoming launch of SeQure and DraKon, two novel microcatheters for tumour and vascular aneurysm embolization procedures. The company introduced the microcatheters at GEST (Global Embolization Cancer Symposium and Technologies) 2018 US in Miami, USA.
Med Alliance SA, a company developing and commercialising the first sirolimus micro-reservoir drug-coated balloon (SELUTION DCB) to treat patients suffering from peripheral artery disease (PAD), coronary artery disease (CAD), arteriovenous fistulas (AVF) and grafts (AVG) for end-stage renal disease, has raised US$37 million.
Drug-coated balloon (DCB) angioplasty devices have been categorised by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) into the same billing code as plain balloon angioplasty, following the expiration of the technology’s transitional pass-through and new technology add-on payments on the 1st of January 2018. The decision not to create a separate reimbursement code for DCBs comes to the surprise and disappointment of a wide range of stakeholders and advocates, from industry to public advocacy groups.
“Now that we know that a 3D-printed model is just as effective at training medical students in this type of procedure, this simulation experience can be made available to even more trainees and potentially improve procedural skills for residents, fellows, and attendees,” said Sheu. “We foresee this really making an impact in the world of interventional radiology training.”
Terumo Corporation has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire assets related to the large bore vascular closure device, Xpro System, from Medeon Biodesign, a Taiwanese publicly traded medical device company.
The post-market, non-interventional, multicentre, non-randomised, single-arm study will enroll approximately 150 patients across 25 sites in Europe and Russia, and will evaluate the safety and performance of a ChEVAR procedure using the Endurant II/IIs stent graft system (Medtronic) in a real-world setting.
The registry will combine noninvasive, vascular ultrasound testing data with vascular treatment and outcomes data, making it possible to analyse the relationships between diagnosis and care provided to patients with vascular disease.
The second series possess the same optimised navigation qualities, while also incorporating unique 
The Global Medtech industry is moving together to enhance compliance practices across Europe, China, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific, announces a statement released by 
“If you are clinically skilled, achieve a high level of technical training in interventional radiology procedures, have the best audited results for a procedure and a good relationship with your clinical colleagues, you are always going to be busy and have a highly successful career,” Andrew Holden, convenor, Central Organising Committee Members, Asia Pacific Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology (APSCVIR) tells Interventional News. Holden is director of Interventional Radiology, Auckland Regional Public Health Service, and associate professor, Radiology, at Auckland University School of Medicine, Auckland, New Zealand.
The authors went on to assess whether differences in hospital quality contributed to variations in readmissions risk for patients with PAD. “Using data from the 1,085 hospitals included in this data set, we created a new analytic model to examine readmission rates between institutions that took into account differences in patient populations,” explained Secemsky. These results found that differences in hospital quality accounted only modestly for readmission risk, suggesting that penalising hospitals with greater than expected readmission rates may not be the only effective approach at reducing readmissions.
The notion of locally destroying a cancer percutaneously with minimal morbidity and mortality has become accepted as part of the modern armamentarium for treating patients with cancer. Thermal ablation technology has evolved rapidly during the past decades, with substantial technical and procedural improvements that can help to improve clinical outcomes and safety profiles, writes Roberto Iezzi, Rome, Italy.
Intact Vascular has announced that positive single centre twenty-four month results from its 
Merit Medical has announced signing an asset purchase agreement with BD (Becton, Dickinson and company) to acquire certain assets which BD proposes to sell in connection with its proposed 
The new European Directive laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from ionising radiation exposure will come into effect on 6 February 2018. The most relevant change for interventionists in the occupational exposure section is the new annual limit for the lens of the eyes (20 mSv/year, instead of 150 mSv/year), write Eliseo Vano (Madrid, Spain) and Gabriel Bartal (Kfar Saba, Israel).
The European Commission, under the EU Merger Regulation, has approved the acquisition of Bard by BD, subject to conditions. Both US-based companies supply medical devices including catheters, stents, surgical instruments, devices for biopsies, and patient monitoring systems.
“One of the biggest challenges for interventional radiology in 2017 is that we are in desperate need of outcomes research that documents the value of interventional radiology in modern healthcare,” Matt Mauro, CEO of UNC Faculty Physicians and chairman, Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Education, Chapel Hill, USA, tells Interventional News.
Fact file
Mentice has announced the release of a new simulation training software for transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). The new software was showcased at the 2017 CIRSE congress (16–20 September, Copenhagen, Denmark).
Bard’s Lutonix 035 drug-coated balloon PTA catheter (DCB) has been granted premarket approval (PMA) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new indication and is now available for sale in the USA.
American women are largely unaware of uterine fibroid embolization according to results from a new nationwide poll released by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR). The data included in the report, “The fibroid fix: What women need to know”, show that 44% of women diagnosed with uterine fibroids say they have never heard of the less invasive treatment option.
Philips has announced that it has completed the acquisition of The Spectranetics Corporation, a US-based global leader in vascular intervention and lead management solutions. Spectranetics’ financial results will be consolidated as part of Philips’ Image-Guided Therapy business group as of 9 August 2017. 
A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of prophylactic dexamethasone in preventing the most frequent adverse events of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma found it to be more effective than a placebo regimen.
The Gore Viatorr TIPS endoprosthesis with Controlled Expansion, a new device configuration developed by Gore, may reduce portal hypertension treatment complications, even when compared to the Gore Viatorr TIPS endoprosthesis, Gore’s legacy TIPS device. The latter has a strong history of patency and proven performance at fixed diameters. These findings were obtained from the abstract presented at The International Liver Congress 2017 in Amsterdam.
Johnson and Johnson Medical Devices Companies introduced Cerenovus, its new neurovascular business, at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery 14th Annual Meeting (SNIS; 24–28 July, Colorado Springs, USA).
Spectranetics has announced receipt of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) premarket approval of the Stellarex drug-coated balloon (DCB), designed to restore and maintain blood flow to the superficial femoral and popliteal arteries in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD).
The
Klaus Hausegger, chairman of the Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology in Klagenfurt, Austria, and president-elect of the Austrian Roentgen Society, will take up a new role as editor-in-chief of the journal CardioVascular and Interventional Radiology (
The 
The Society of Interventional Oncology (SIO and BTG have announced their 2017 Interventional interventional oncology /immuno-oncology research grant recipients.
PinnacleHealth CardioVascular Institute has enrolled the first US patient in a trial assessing the safety and effectiveness of a new type of approach for blockages in the leg artery.
Codman Neuro has announced the acquisition of Neuravi. This acquisition comes after the company’s recent acquisition of Pulsar Vascular, expanding its products for stroke therapy. DePuy Ireland Unlimited Company, an affiliate of Codman Neuro, is the acquiring entity. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
A Sheffield healthcare company has announced a strategic ‘buy out’ from its parent company, BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a deal which will see the company independently trade once again as UK Medical Ltd.
Mirabilis has announced CE mark authorisation to market the Mirabilis System in the European Union. The system combines high-speed therapeutic ultrasound technology with an advanced robotic system for uterine fibroid treatment.
Metactive, an early-stage company focused on developing embolization devices for the treatment of peripheral vascular and neurovascular diseases, has announced the issuance of US patents 9,572,697 and 9,572,698 covering its Blockstent Microcatheter for embolization of peripheral arteries and veins and Ballstent Microcatheter for embolization of cerebral aneurysms. These proprietary microcatheter devices deliver a compressed gold metal implant over a 0.014” guidewire to treatment sites, where the implant is expanded and then detached to permanently stop blood flow.
The new Acuson Freestyle Elite ultrasound system can now be combined with the Artis angiography systems to enable fast and easy-to-use ultrasound guidance during interventional procedures. With this combined solution, referred to as Artis Freestyle Access, Siemens Healthineers supports a more convenient, less time-consuming, and safer workflow, a press release from the company says.
Interventional radiologists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, USA, are using technology found in self-driving cars to power a machine learning application that helps guide patients’ interventional radiology care, according to research presented today at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2017 annual scientific meeting (4–9 March, Washington, DC, USA).
“Prostatic artery embolization,” said Sapoval, “is a demanding procedure performed by experienced interventional radiologists. The anatomy is highly variable, the microcatheter and microwire skills required are advanced, and a high degree of technical competence in various areas is essential. Simulation training aims to facilitate the learning curve for performing prostatic artery embolization.”
“War (as in turf war) is an emotional word because, in wars, people get hurt. I believe we truly care about the patients we serve and the last thing we want is for patients to get hurt. […] By and large, we have found that approaching role extension issues through discussion is preferable to confrontation,” Gregory John Slater, president, The 
At our recent Board and Faculty Council meetings, we have decided to establish a standing committee of interventional radiology. This is our highest-level committee and aims to advance the role and place of interventional radiology in Australia and New Zealand. It aims to promote interventional radiology to the highest levels of government and the community and I expect it will seek to establish the discipline as a recognised subspecialty in our countries.
Suresh Vedantham, professor of Radiology and Surgery, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, USA, is scheduled to present the final results of the landmark 
Penumbra has announced the presentation of the results of the ASTER trial, the first independent, prospective, randomised trial comparing the use of Penumbra’s aspiration system to stent retriever, in the opening plenary session at the International Stroke Conference in Houston, Texas.
Philips has announced the global launch of Azurion, its next generation image-guided therapy platform, which forms the new core of its integrated solutions portfolio for the fast growing image-guided therapy market.
Argon has announced that it has completed the sale of its Critical Care Unit including a manufacturing facility in Yishun, Singapore and related commercial operations in Europe and Japan, to Merit. 
Medtronic has received an investigational device exemption (IDE) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate a study of the In.Pact Admiral drug-coated balloon for a potential new indication in patients with end-stage renal disease.
TVA Medical has provided clinical updates involving its everlinQ endoAVF system at the 2017 Leipzig Interventional Course (LINC; 24–17 January, Leipzig, Germany).
Terumo Corporation has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement under which it has agreed to acquire Bolton Medical from its parent company. Bolton Medical is a leading innovator in thoracic and abdominal stent graft systems.
Robert Califf is to step down as US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner upon the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President on 20 January 2017. Democrat Califf, who was appointed to the post in September 2016 by Barack Obama, is required to resign along with other presidential appointees.
Abbott announced on 4 January 2017 that it has completed the acquisition of St Jude Medical.
It is readily apparent that those with cancer live by a separate set of rules and conditions, and their main focus is to be that “one in a million” who beats the odds. Regardless of how sensitive, knowledgeable or understanding healthcare workers may be, it is difficult for them to slip their feet completely into the cancer warrior’s shoes. The most compelling advice and experiences come from those with personal exposure. The oneIAM club or one in a million club was created to instantly open lines of communication among those with cancer so they can communicate experiences, tricks, strategies and ideas that combat the isolation, confusion and negativity that typically go along with a diagnosis of cancer. It also provides a forum for support, comfort and encouragement. It lets those affected know they are not alone and that the path they are about to travel has been walked by many. And if they heed what the many have to say, their travels will be less stressful and more agreeable.
Terumo has reached an agreement with Abbott and St Jude Medical to acquire certain products owned by both for a total of US$1.12 billion.
For the upcoming MIOLive symposium, we had the idea of introducing a special “ten commandments” session for ablation, chemoembolization, and radioembolization, to create a practical handbook for the interventional radiologist who approaches liver interventions, write Roberto Iezzi, Rome, Italy and Laura Crocetti, Pisa, Italy. They give Interventional News readers a preview of the first five commandments.
Roberto Iezzi is an interventional radiologist, Catholic University, Rome, Italy and Laura Crocetti is an interventional radiologist, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. MIOLive 2017 will focus on liver-directed therapy for hepatic malignancies. It will be a practical, interactive meeting based on live cases and short presentations and lectures, in which professionals from various countries from the Mediterranean area will have the opportunity to share experiences, research projects and valued mentoring from international experts
A preliminary analysis suggests that thermal ablation may be effective in selected patients with local small cell lung cancer without adjuvant therapy. The research from Brown University, Providence, USA was published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (JVIR).
Abbott and St Jude Medical have announced an agreement in principle to sell certain products to Terumo Corporation.The agreement is an important step toward completion of Abbott’s acquisition of St Jude Medical. Abbott’s acquisition of St Jude Medical is expected to close by year-end. 
The Interventional Initiative, Oakland, USA and Evolve Media Production, San Francisco and New York, USA, have announced the distribution of episode one of the documentary “Without a Scalpel” on Amazon Prime and Vimeo On Demand.
BTG has announced that it has obtained CE mark from the Notified Body British Standards Institution (BSI) following completion of the reclassification of DC Bead and DC Bead M1 as class III medical devices.
