December 28, 2011 – Hansen Medical, a developer of robotic technology for accurate 3-D control of catheter movement, announced the world's first uses of the Magellan robotic system in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease (PVD). The clinical procedures were performed by Professor Nick Cheshire, M.D., and the medical team at St. Mary's Hospital, part of the Imperial College Healthcare in London, pioneers in the use of flexible robotics in vascular interventions.

December 27, 2011 — The January 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE) will feature a new resource for guidance on three-dimensional echocardiography (3-DE). The document, titled The EAE/ASE Recommendations for Image Acquisition and Display Using Three-Dimensional Echocardiography, provides a practical guide on how to acquire analyze and display the various cardiac structures using 3-DE.

December 23, 2011 - Philips Healthcare said Medical City Dallas Hospital, Dallas, Texas, is the first hospital in the United States to use Philips’ HeartNavigator interventional tool in clinical practice. HeartNavigator is a new procedure planning and image guidance tool to help interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons perform minimally invasive heart valve replacements. Developed in cooperation with partner hospitals around the world, HeartNavigator is designed to increase the objectivity of the procedure planning and to simplify the procedure itself.

December 23, 2011 — Biotronik announced the first implantations of the new Lumax 740 implantable cardiac defibrillators — the world’s first and only ICDs eligible for use with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The devices — for patients with tachyarrhythmias — feature ProMRI, an MR Conditional feature, combined with an extended device longevity and Biotronik Home Monitoring.

Abbott announced the initiation of ESPRIT I, a first-of-its-kind clinical trial in Europe evaluating the safety and performance of the novel Esprit drug-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS) for the treatment of blockages in the superficial femoral arteries (SFA) and iliac arteries. It will specifically target blockages that resulted in claudication (leg pain upon walking).