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Beneficial Effects of Vasomedical's EECP Therapy Reinforced During the 55th Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology
Presentations Highlight Patient Benefits and Potential Health Care Cost Savings
WESTBURY, N.Y., Mar 14, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Vasomedical, Inc. (Nasdaq SC:VASO) announced today that there were six scientific presentations dedicated to the topic of enhanced external counterpulsation therapy during the 55th Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in Atlanta, Georgia, March 11-14. The presentations illustrated EECP® therapy's leading role in the treatment of patients who have advanced ischemic heart disease but few or no options for treatment. George A. Beller, MD, FACC, Ruth C. Heede Professor in Cardiology, University of Virginia Health System, presented a comprehensive review of data supporting the use of EECP therapy in patients with advanced coronary disease, including those with heart failure. His talk included recent analysis from the PEECH (Prospective Evaluation of EECP in Congestive Heart Failure) trial demonstrating that patients age sixty-five and older had a more robust response to EECP therapy compared to the overall population in the trial. Patients age sixty-five and older improved significantly on both the primary end-points of exercise duration and peak oxygen uptake assessed in the PEECH study and showed a greater increase in their ability to exercise relative to the overall study population, suggesting that Medicare-eligible heart failure patients are more likely to benefit from the treatment.
In a separate presentation, Ozlem Soran, MD, MPH, FACC, FESC, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, provided data showing that EECP therapy has major potential for reducing health care costs in patients with signs of heart failure. She presented data showing a 91% reduction in emergency room visits and an 86% reduction in hospitalizations over a six-month period following EECP therapy when compared with the six-month period prior to receiving the treatment.
Additionally, a presentation by William Lawson, MD, FACC, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Stony Brook University, of New York, highlighted improvements EECP therapy can accomplish in the deteriorated s..ual function that often accompanies medically refractory angina, while another by Timothy Henry, MD, FACC, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, showed that angina patients with a history of peripheral arterial disease can be safely treated and benefit from the therapy. Data presented by Sanjay Mittal, MD, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi, India, suggested that EECP therapy might achieve its effects via a dominant training effect, consistent with prior research showing improvements in endothelial function obtained with the therapy.
"We are pleased that these exciting presentations could be shared with attendees at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session. They continue to demonstrate wider applicability, substantial efficacy, and opportunities for cost savings achieved with EECP therapy. The data presented by Drs. Beller and Soran are especially important, as they pertain directly to the heart failure population and should be of great interest to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and others who control the options available to this difficult to treat and costly group of patients to manage. Other presentations underlined EECP therapy's leading role in treating refractory angina, even in patients with other active diseases, and showed the therapy to have significant beneficial side effects that could represent a new indication for the therapy in the future," stated Thomas Varricchione, vice president of clinical, regulatory and quality affairs at Vasomedical.
About EECP® Therapy
EECP external counterpulsation therapy is typically given in 35 one-hour sessions over seven weeks. Patients recline on a contoured treatment table and their calves, lower thighs and upper thighs are wrapped in a pneumatic cuff set. The system, which is synchronized to the individual patient's cardiac cycle, inflates the cuffs with air to create external pressure when the heart is resting and deflates the cuffs just before the next heartbeat. The system's action, which pulses counter to the heart's beating, increases blood flow to the heart muscle and other organs and decreases the heart's workload, creating a greater oxygen supply for the heart muscle while lowering its need for oxygen.
About Vasomedical, Inc.
Vasomedical, Inc. is primarily engaged in designing, manufacturing, marketing and supporting EECP external counterpulsation systems based on the Company's unique proprietary technology. EECP therapy is a noninvasive, outpatient therapy for the treatment of diseases of the cardiovascular system currently indicated for use in cases of stable or unstable angina, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction and cardiogenic shock. The therapy serves to increase circulation in areas of the heart with less than adequate blood supply and may restore systemic vascular function. The Company provides hospitals, clinics and private practices with EECP equipment, treatment guidance and a staff training and equipment maintenance program designed to provide optimal patient outcomes. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.vasomedical.com.
EECP is a registered trademark for Vasomedical's enhanced external counterpulsation systems.
Except for historical information contained in this release, the matters discussed are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. When used in this report, words such as "anticipated," "believes," "could," "estimates," "expects," "may," "plans," "potential" and "intends" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company or its management, identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of the Company's management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company's management. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: the effect of the dramatic changes taking place in the healthcare environment; the impact of competitive procedures and products and their pricing; medical insurance reimbursement policies; unexpected manufacturing or supplier problems; unforeseen difficulties and delays in product development programs; the actions of regulatory authorities and third-party payers in the United States and overseas; uncertainties about the acceptance of a novel therapeutic modality by the medical community; and the risk factors reported from time to time in the Company's SEC reports. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of future events or developments.
