A company that developed a technology to address gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) by way of a procedure called Transoral Incisionless Fundoplication (TIF), just reported two-year data from its TIF U.S. registry, which was presented last week at the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES; Los Angeles) meeting in Baltimore.

One of the most deadly cancers, colon cancer, also happens to be one of the most preventable types of cancer because it can take up to 10 years for pre-cancerous colon polyps to turn malignant. Unfortunately, the invasive nature of colonoscopy, coupled with the fact that not everyone who should be screened for colon cancer has easy access to a gastroenterologist, means that only a fraction of the at-risk population is screened for the disease.

The same surgeon-turned-entrepreneur team that built and ultimately sold Vortex Medical (Norwell, Massachusetts) and its AngioVac drainage system are wearing their entrepreneur caps again, this time with a brand new company called Kaleidoscope Medical (Paradise Valley, Arizona). Kaleidoscope plans to develop new solutions for treating venous thromboembolic disease (VTE), including an inferior vena caval (IVC) filter expected to overcome the shortcomings of the IVC filters currently on the market.

Back in January a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot wrote an incredibly insensitive, misinformed, and elitist piece that had my friends with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) losing their poop. Pun intended. The column was written in reaction to a defeated bill that would have required businesses in Virginia to allow patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis (collectively...

Medtronic (Minneapolis) this week released a new real-time navigation system for cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers and defibrillators (CRT-P and CRT-D) in the U.S. and Canada. The CardioGuide Implant System is designed to help physicians determine the most appropriate location for left-ventricular (LV) lead placement by generating 3-D images of the cardiac veins.

GE Healthcare (Chalfont, UK) has been making notable moves toward fighting cancer for some time now, and the latest product offering from the company shows that GE has not lost sight of that important focus. The company reported that Clarient Diagnostic Services (Aliso Viejo, California), a GE Healthcare company, will begin offering a next-generation sequencing assay focused on solid tumor targets for use in clinical trials.