St Jude Medical announced the first use of the company’s renal denervation catheter and generator system, as part of a feasibility study of the new technology for resistant hypertension therapy. Stephen Worthley, chair of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Adelaide, performed the first procedure at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in South Australia.
“We have leveraged our company’s extensive experience in ablation technologies to develop a renal denervation system that provides physicians with an alternative therapeutic option for patients with resistant hypertension,” said Frank Callaghan, president of the St Jude Medical Cardiovascular Division. “This technology could potentially help alleviate some of the US$500 billion impact that hypertension has on our health care systems by reducing or eliminating costly and lifelong medication use. Patients could potentially benefit through an overall reduction in risks for cardiovascular side effects of hypertension, including death.”
Commenting on the procedure, Worthley said, “The design of this catheter minimises the need for extensive catheter manipulation, which could potentially shorten procedure time, limit contrast use and reduce fluoroscopic exposure for me, my patients and other cath lab staff.”
St Jude Medical expects a limited market launch of this denervation technology in Europe before the end of 2012.
