The controversy over the use of paclitaxel in devices for the peripheral vasculature has taken a significant bite out of sales, but a new study serves to help reverse the narrative regarding mortality. According to a study of more than 168,000 Medicare patients, stents and angioplasty balloons coated with paclitaxel (PTX) were non-inferior to non-coated devices for mortality out to nearly three years, a finding that may encourage clinicians to return to normal utilization patterns and thus help to restore sales volumes.
The latest global regulatory news, changes and updates affecting medical devices and technologies, including: BD offers little detail in reaction to advisory hearing; FDA invites stakeholders to user fee negotiations; MHRA wary of paclitaxel.
The storm of controversy over the use of paclitaxel in devices for the peripheral vasculature had a dramatic effect on utilization, but a new study coming out of Sweden seems to have helped further ease concerns about purported mortality associated with this antiproliferative. While this unplanned interim analysis lends yet more support to the view that the mortality signal in the so-called Katsanos paper did not reflect a true biological finding, the net effect of the controversy has prompted a call for a registry that might eliminate some statistical noise that had a significant and harmful impact on patients.
Christmas arrived early for Athenex Inc. as the FDA approved Klisyri (tirbanibulin) for treating actinic keratosis on the face or scalp nearly two weeks before the treatment’s PDUFA date.
The drug-eluting balloon (DEB) has not displaced the drug-eluting stent (DES) for treatment of infarcts, but that may be changing with the results of the PICCOLETO II study.
Boston Scientific Corp. has scooped up an approval from the U.S. FDA for the Ranger drug-coated balloon to help those with peripheral artery disease in the superficial femoral artery and proximal popliteal artery.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized its Medicare inpatient payment rule for fiscal 2021, and Boston Scientific Corp., of Marlborough, Mass., was perhaps a surprise winner with a new technology add-on payment (NTAP) for its Eluvia paclitaxel-coated stent for the lower limbs. The Eluvia had faltered at a previous NTAP application due to the controversy over paclitaxel in devices for the peripheral vasculature, but Boston Scientific said in a Sept. 3 press release that the decision to grant an NTAP payment “is particularly important,” given the scrutiny applied to paclitaxel’s use in these devices.
Medtronic plc is highlighting the publication of primary endpoint results from the In.Pact AV Access trial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that the company’s paclitaxel-coated balloon limits the number of reinterventions needed to maintain blood flow in patients with end-stage renal disease who have arteriovenous fistulae.
The emergence of the new variety of coronavirus has had a massive effect on medical care across the globe, which has boosted telehealth coverage while suppressing non-emergency procedures. Several medical societies have published guidelines for procedures during the COVID-19 outbreak, however, which in the aggregate suggest that many procedures will be significantly delayed.
The controversy over the use of paclitaxel-bearing devices in the femoropopliteal arteries is far from over. Now, a new medical journal article makes a similar claim about mortality in connection with the use of these devices in the infrapopliteal arteries, threatening once again to take a bite out of utilization.