Rochester,NY 9/2/2009 9:47:49 PM
Boston Scientific Corporation BSX, cuts heart events-study
Boston Scientific Corporation
Early intervention with Boston Scientific's implantable devices, called cardiac resynchronization therapy, helped patients' hearts work better but did not reduce mortality in an eagerly awaited clinical trial.
The study, details of which were released on Tuesday, may increase the market for the expensive devices, which coordinate heart pumping through electrical pulses, beyond the sickest heart-failure patients.
But some cardiologists gathered in Barcelona, where the data were presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, cautioned against rushing to use them too widely.
Boston Scientific first announced in June that its MADIT-CRT study of more than 1,800 patients had met its main goal.
The full details showed that the CRT devices when combined with a defibrillator, or ICD, cut the risk of death or heart failure interventions by 34 percent in asymptomatic and mild heart-failure patients, compared with defibrillators alone.
The benefit was driven not by a difference in deaths but by a 41-percent reduction in heart-failure events, which investigators defined as those requiring hospitalization or intervention with intravenous medication on an outpatient basis.
Analysts said it could take several years of data to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in deaths.
"While a reduction in mortality was not expected by most physicians and would have been nearly impossible given the trial timeline, some of the Street may frown upon the lack of reduction," Lazard Capital analyst Sean Lavin said in a note.
Boston Scientific's shares fell 50 cents, or 4.1 percent, to $11.26 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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