Intact Vascular has announced ISO Certification and CE mark approval for its Tack-it Endovascular Stapler device which is designed to optimise peripheral angioplasty results for the treatment of peripheral artery disease.
Balloon angioplasty is the most commonly performed peripheral intervention used to improve blood flow in leg arteries. However, suboptimal results occur frequently due to an irregularly shaped lumen or tissue dissection from the angioplasty mechanism itself. If left untreated, acute or long-term complications can occur resulting in a re-intervention, tissue loss, or amputation. The Tack-it Endovascular Stapler device is a 6F multi-loaded catheter containing four self-expanding tacks. The 6.0mm-length implant has six pairs of anchors designed to optimise angioplasty by creating tissue apposition to smooth the arterial lumen.
A clinical trial was conducted in South America on 11 subjects in whom 50 Tacks were placed. The subjects were followed for 12 months.
“This is a first-in-man experience with a novel approach to superficial femoral artery revascularisation,” said William A Gray, advisor to Intact Vascular. “The one-year results are very encouraging, and the company is planning to initiate a post-CE mark clinical study within the next couple of months.”
“This is a significant milestone for the company, as we are one step closer to providing this technology for patients in which peripheral artery disease procedures are growing at double-digit rates partly due to the staggering rise in patients with Type 2 diabetes,” said Carol A Burns, CEO, Intact Vascular. “This is a unique solution for patients, offering physicians a new paradigm for treatment. Three important concepts are at the core of co-founder, Robert Giasolli’s design, which includes: 1) less foreign material in the artery, 2) less long term chronic injury to the vessel, and 3) the ability to perform ‘spot’ treatment to the vessel only where needed.”
Co-founder and chief medical officer, Peter Schneider said, “Right now, we are very limited by the tools we have available. We can either do angioplasty, which often produces a suboptimal result, or we can place a stent, which looks good initially but often does not last and has a lot of downstream problems. We believe the Tack-It technology will offer a new solution to address this problem. One of the key design features is that the device can treat a range of diameters offering tremendous versatility. This will enable physicians to go down the leg after angioplasty and spot-treat several areas using a single device.”
