Two papers looking at subsets of patients from the EVEREST II (Endovascular Valve Edge-to-Edge REpair STudy) High-Risk registry and REALISM Continued Access Study High-Risk Arm show that Abbott Vascular's (Santa Clara, California) MitraClip could be beneficial in treating patients with severe mitral regurgitation (MR). The papers were published in this month's Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

InspireMD (Boston) said that it has completed enrollment for its Interventional Cardiologists, Interventional Radiologists and Vascular Surgeons (CARENET) trial. The company said that the purpose of the multi-speciality trial is to assess the peri-procedural safety and efficacy of CGuard systems in the treatment of carotid lesions.

The World Health Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) estimates that as many as 60% of tuberculosis (TB) cases are seen only at the peripheral health clinic, where current diagnosis is impossible. A new test for TB could improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis of the disease and therefore enable healthcare providers to report results to patients within minutes. The TB REaD POC is being developed by GBDbio (Temple, Texas) and is said to identify a new chemical compound to spot the bacteria that cause TB with a level of sensitivity that currently takes months to produce.