CardiacAssist Reports Record Pace For TandemHeart® Cases in First Four Months of 2010 Compared to Same Period Last Year

Flexibility of TandemHeart is key to continued market expansion

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CardiacAssist Inc. announced today that the number of new cases in which its TandemHeart® extracorporeal circulatory support system has been used in the first four months of 2010 is on a record pace compared to the similar time period in 2009. TandemHeart is being used in 90% of the “Best U.S. Heart & Surgery Hospitals” as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

“TandemHeart is at the front lines of helping us treat critically ill cardiac patients. If TandemHeart were not available, our only option would be an intra-aortic balloon pump, which is not an optimal solution,” said Jonathan A. Hammond, Jr., M.D., Director of Cardiac Surgery and Cardiac Transplantation at Hartford Hospital. “TandemHeart allows us to provide an additional level of care to critically ill cardiac patients. If you had to have just one circulatory support device on the shelf, I think TandemHeart is the one that gives you the most support and the most flexibility.”

Since becoming commercially available in 2004, more than 2,000 of the most dire cardiac patients at a vast majority of the finest hospitals across the United States have benefited from TandemHeart availability. About 35% of these patients have benefited from TandemHeart support for ventricular dysfunction in a highly emergent setting, while approximately 65% have benefited from TandemHeart support during high-risk surgery or the riskiest of cardiac interventions.

FDA-cleared TandemHeart can be placed rapidly by both interventional cardiologists in a cath lab and by cardiac surgeons in an operating room to provide short-term circulatory support to patients requiring additional cardiac assistance. The device provides effective and reliable temporary circulatory support for critically ill patients. Hemodynamic support includes a high net blood-flow rate of up to five liters per minute with percutaneous cannulation or up to eight liters per minute with direct cannulation—more than twice the amount of other available technologies—and is fully reimbursed by Medicare under existing DRG codes.

About CardiacAssist

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, privately held CardiacAssist is a growing and profitable medical technology company that develops, manufactures and markets cardiac assist devices. The Company has developed the world’s first and only proprietary platform, FDA-cleared and CE-Marked TandemHeart®, which provides a short-term extracorporeal circulatory support system for both cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.



CONTACT:

Ronald Trahan Associates, Inc.
Ron Trahan, APR, 508-359-4005, x108

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  Pennsylvania

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Health  Cardiology  Medical Devices

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