Abbott Announces Positive One-Year Results from the World's First Clinical Trial of a Fully Bioabsorbable Drug Eluting Coro...( One-Year Data on First 30 Patients E...),Health

One-Year Data on First 30 Patients Enrolled in Ongoing Study Presented at

TCT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced continued positive results from ABSORB, the world's first clinical trial evaluating the safety and performance of a fully bioabsorbable drug eluting stent platform for the treatment of coronary artery disease. One-year results from the first 30 patients in the trial demonstrated no stent thrombosis and a low major adverse cardiac event (MACE) rate at 12 months (1 patient, 3.4%, n=29), with no additional MACE, including no re-treatment of a diseased lesion (ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization) since six months for patients who received a bioabsorbable stent. The overall MACE rate in the ABSORB trial at six months was 3.3%, as previously announced in March 2007. The results were presented today at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation's 19th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium.

"We continue to see consistent positive data from consecutive patient follow-up in the ABSORB trial," said Patrick W. Serruys, M.D., Ph.D., professor of interventional cardiology at the Thoraxcentre, Erasmus University Hospital, Rotterdam, and co-principal investigator in the ABSORB study. "Abbott's bioabsorbable coronary artery stent technology has maintained initial safety and effectiveness results in patients out to one year."

Abbott is the only company with a bioabsorbable drug eluting coronary stent in clinical trials. Abbott's bioabsorbable everolimus eluting coronary stent is made of polylactic acid, a proven biocompatible material that is commonly used in medical implants such a
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