Medtronic presents Talent thoracic stent trial results

Medtronic has announced the results of the 12-month Valor clinical study involving 195 patients investigating the use of the Talent thoracic stent graft system. These results were presented at the annual meeting of the society for Vascular Surgery held in Baltimore.

The company reports that patients using the stent graft system saw a 16.1 per cent all-cause mortality rate, a “significant” reduction compared to the rate for the surgical control group of 29.8 per cent.

Furthermore, the stent system had an aneurysm treatment rate of 89.2 per cent, while aneurysm-related mortality in the trial was at 3.1 per cent after the full year.

Dr Ronald Fairman, chief of the division of vascular surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, said: “These results are excellent and demonstrate that the Talent thoracic stent graft provides substantial reductions in all-cause mortality compared to open surgery for this patient population.”

He added that this minimally-invasive process could provide a potential treatment option for patients considering open surgery.

Also in the trial, the Talent thoracic stent graft system showed 100 per cent patency – the ability to remain open and not collapse – while the success rate for physicians deploying the graft was recorded at 99.5 per cent.

In April 2007, Medtronic announced the merger of its vascular and cardiac surgery business units as a new single CardioVascular segment.