St. Jude wins FDA approval for irrigation pump

The FDA has approved St. Jude Medical's Cool Point irrigation pump, which is used in conjunction with St. Jude's open-irrigated radiofrequency ablation catheters.

St. Jude said that its Cool Point irrigation pump was developed for use with its IBI-1500T9-CP cardiac ablation generator and family of Therapy Cool Path irrigated catheters.

The Cool Point irrigation pump provides monitoring and safety features, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company said. The pump's tubing includes an in-line occlusion detector, which monitors flow pressure between the pump and the catheter tip, providing an alert if flow pressure increases substantially relative to the flow rate. In addition, the pump has redundant bubble detectors, each designed to detect bubbles as small as two microliters. Bubbles in the bloodstream may lead to embolism or stroke.

Around the web

RBMA President Peter Moffatt discusses some of the biggest obstacles facing the specialty in the new year. 

Deepak Bhatt, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and principal investigator of the TRANSFORM trial, explains an emerging technique for cardiac screening: combining coronary CT angiography with artificial intelligence for plaque analysis to create an approach similar to mammography.

A total of 16 cardiology practices from 12 states settled with the DOJ to resolve allegations they overbilled Medicare for imaging agents used to diagnose cardiovascular disease.