Interventional radiologists have devised a way to access a woman's fibroids by flipping her wrist and treating via an arm not groin artery. It can be used to nonsurgically shrink noncancerous growths in the muscular wall of the uterus. Researchers found this to be less painful and traumatic for women, allowing them to immediately sit up and move after uterine fibroid embolization (UFE)—with no overnight stay. This is according to a March article in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.

Memorial Hospital in Carbondale, Ill., has chosen Quail Digital’s healthcare wireless headset system. It will be used in catheterization and electrophysiology labs where all coronary and peripheral vascular interventions, device implants and electrophysiology procedures are performed.

W. L. Gore & Associates’ Gore Excluder Iliac Branch Endoprosthesis is a complete, fully engineered system intended for endovascular treatment of common iliac artery aneurysms or aortoiliac aneurysms. It received CE marking. The first patient procedures in Europe were successfully completed by vascular surgeons Piergiorgio Cao, M.D., chief of vascular surgery at San Camillo Hospital, Rome, Italy, Mo Hamady, M.D., consultant interventional radiologist at St. Mary’s Hospital, London, and Michael Jenkins, consultant vascular surgeon and clinical lead at St. Mary’s Hospital, London.

Biotronik announced the first implantations of the Sentus ProMRI lead. Biotronik’s bipolar cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) lead is the first MR conditional lead with a 4 French diameter — approximately 1.6 mm. An ultra-thin lead, it enables access to particularly challenging vessels and offers expanded pacing options. In addition, the Sentus leads are allow patients to undergo MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans. The CRT lead received CE marking in early February.

Blanchard Valley Health System is a non-profit, integrated health system with more than 2,000 associates serving eight counties in Ohio. It selected Merge Healthcare Inc. for its enterprise-wide vendor-neutral archive (VNA), interoperability and cardiology solutions to meet Meaningful Use 2 (MU2) requirements for the exchange of images.

Vital Images Inc., a Toshiba Medical Systems Group Company, is expanding in the EMEA market with an increasing number of organizations migrating to Vital's VitreaAdvanced solution to help improve efficiency, communication and patient care. The VitreaAdvanced advanced visualization solution provides 2-D, 3-D and 4-D images for applications addressing cardiovascular, neurovascular and oncology disease states. Fueled by intelligent automation, it utilizes a clinical workflow to improve speed and simplicity of use.