Crux Biomedical Announces First Successful U.S. Implant of Its New Retrievable Inferior Vena Cava (I...( ATLANTA Oct. 3 /- Crux Biomedical...)

ATLANTA, Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Crux Biomedical, Inc., a privately held medical device firm, announced that it has successfully completed the first implant in the United States of the Crux IVC Filter. The filter, used to prevent an often fatal pulmonary embolism (PE), was implanted at the Atlanta Medical Center by David Rosenthal, Chief of Vascular Surgery. Every year in the United States, approximately 600,000 patients develop a PE and between 120,000 - 150,000 die as a result. The revolutionary filter design provides unique self-centering, ease of retrieval and low profile.

"The Crux filter was extremely easy to deploy. We are excited with the devices' ability to routinely self center in the vena cava and as result, we anticipate improved retrievability," Rosenthal stated. Atlanta's David Rosenthal is the Principal Investigator for Crux's pivotal IDE study, which is being conducted at 12 leading medical institutions in the United States.

Retrievable IVC filters were first introduced in the United States in 2002. They offer physicians the option to leave the device in on a permanent basis or to remove the filter via minimally invasive methods, once the patient is through the period when they are at risk for a PE. However current retrievable filters offer challenges to physicians. "Tilting of an IVC filter makes subsequent retrieval very challenging and can take up to several hours to accomplish," said Frank Arko, co-founder of Crux and Chief of Endovascular Surgery at University of Texas Southwestern. "I was amazed how easy it was to retrieve the Crux filter in our initial implants outside the United States. We were able to deploy or remove the filter in less than 5 minutes."

Annual sales of IVC filter in the United States are estimated to be $252MM in 2008 and growing between 8-10% annually. Filters are increasingly being used as a result of increased diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis and the protection that they afford in cases of trauma
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