Research In Brief

The Stroke Research Network of England’s National Institute for Health Research has “adopted” W.L. Gore’s ongoing REDUCE patent foramen ovale closure stroke trial to help drive patient recruitment in the country, the company announced June 20. The network supports studies by offering 100% coverage in U.K. National Health Service hospitals. The REDUCE trial is randomizing patients with PFO heart defects to either have them closed with Gore’s Helex septal occluder, plus medical management, or be treated with standard medical management alone. But the study has suffered from enrollment delays, first due to competition with out-of-trial use of PFO closure to treat recurrent stroke, and then in the wake of the 2010 report from the CLOSURE I trial, which found no benefit for NMT Medical's STARFlex device over medical management. (See Also see "Case Closed On PFO Closure? A Principal Investigator Weighs In" - Medtech Insight, 3 January, 2011..)

Placing a prophylactic mid-urethral sling during vaginal prolapse surgery reduces by half a woman’s risk of developing urinary incontinence at three-month and one-year follow-up points, but is also associated with...