BROADCASTS.com

Jennifer Jones-McMeans, divisional vice president of global clinical affairs at Abbott\u2019s vascular business, and Dr. Brian DeRubertis, a doctor at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, shine a light on peripheral artery disease and critical limb-threatening ischemia where artery blockage restricts blood flow to the lower legs. Abbott has developed the Esprit, a dissolving scaffold that opens up the artery in the blocked area and elutes a drug that slows disease progression. Their LIFE-BTK trial demonstrated success in a diverse patient population and is a significant new treatment option for CLTI.\xa0

Brian explains, "One of the things that I\u2019ll say is our group is starting to explore doing additional efforts at patient education with our own patients, patients who have actually been diagnosed with this disease, and educating them a little bit more about what it means to have this disease, how they can be involved in the process of trying to prevent their disease from getting worse. And the reason we\u2019re doing this is exactly what you said. Everyone knows what a heart attack is, but very few people understand that the same process that leads to clogged arteries in the heart or blocked arteries in the heart can lead to blocked arteries in the legs. Those blockages can ultimately lead to amputation. And so, the education of patients and keeping them informed about the disease process is one important part of this."\xa0

Jennifer elaborates, "This is really a landmark moment for people with this severe form of peripheral artery disease, which we\u2019re calling CLTI. When you think of these minimally invasive procedures to treat this disease, currently in the United States, you only have plain balloon angioplasty. And this is what the LIFE BTK trial was measured against. The Esprit was measured, which is our dissolving stent, and tested against the standard of care, plain balloon angioplasty. And it\u2019s been decades since there\u2019s been any innovation in this, what they\xa0sometimes call the endovascular first space. The Esprit is made out of a polymer material similar to what you would think about with dissolving stitches, and it also has a drug on it."

#Abbott #CLTI #PeripheralArteryDisease #PAD #LegArteries #PlainBalloonAngioplasty #DiversityinClinicalTrials

abbott.com

Download the transcript here