People who sustain the most common type of hip fracture, known as a femoral neck fracture, are at increased risk of complications. A special type of MRI developed at Hospital for Special Surgery (New York) in collaboration with GE Healthcare (Chalfont, UK) can show a detailed image following fracture repair, without the distortion caused by metal surgical screws that are problematic in standard MRIs.

Initial public offerings have almost become a thing of the past for the medical device industry, but two device companies are going against the grain. TriVascular Technologies (Santa Rosa, California) and Lombard Medical Technologies (London and Irvine, California) both filed IPO paperwork Monday. Both companies sell devices to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Patients with valvular heart disease (VHD) will now be classified by four stages of progression, similar to heart failure patients, according to new practice guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA; Dallas) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC; Washington). The new guidelines also lower the threshold for interventions, including, for the first time, transcatheter as well as surgical interventions.