Interventional Cardiologists Cautious in Adopting Intravascular Imaging and Assessment Devices: Challenge to Manufacturers

TORONTO, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, interventional cardiologists looking for ways to improve outcomes and avoid unnecessary revascularization procedures are looking carefully at the available clinical evidence supporting the use of intravascular and assessment devices. These physicians see the value in fractional flow reserve (FFR) pressure guidewires, but are more reluctant to adopt optical coherence catheters (OCT) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS).

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Interventional cardiologists see these methods as a way to improve clinical outcomes, more accurately assess which vessel blockages actually require intervention, reduce 30-day readmissions and treat more patients with optimal medical therapy (OMT).

"This is a dynamic market and physicians are anxious to make decisions based on the best clinical data," said MRG Analyst Ian Swanson. "Many have not settled on a favored modality for assessing lesions. The tight budgets means that not only will OCT and IVUS will be competing directly with each other, and it's likely that physicians will favor one or the other, but that these modalities will be competing with FFR, which has the strongest clinical data. This survey gives an unequalled view of the attitudes of those directly involved in purchase decisions."

FFR will see the largest increase in market penetration, as physicians increasingly use pressure guidewires to determine which lesions require revascularization. The higher-cost OCT and IVUS have less clinical evidence supporting their use. Manufacturers without an FFR product will find themselves squeezed by competitors.

Physicians also pointed out what they saw as unmet needs in this market, which include better integration into the cath lab; single "one-stop" modalities; better non-invasive imaging and most importantly, lower-cost devices.

These results come from a new MRG survey, Intravascular Imaging and Assessment: Is Seeing Believing?, part of its Physician Forum series. Physician Forum surveys are produced in response to specific market events and trends that are expected to have significant effects on the utilization and sales of medical devices. This survey was published in December 2012.

The results are based on surveys that were conducted in November 2012 and included 77 respondents. They were interventional cardiologists, including both users and nonusers of vascular imaging and lesion assessment technologies.

Millennium Research Group's Intravascular Imaging and Assessment: Is Seeing Believing? survey provides information about physician attitudes and purchase decision criteria for fractional flow reserve (FFR) pressure guidewires, optical coherence catheters (OCT) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) devices as well as new modalities such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), instantaneous wave free ratio (iFR) and fractional flow reserve from computed tomography (FFR_CT).

About Millennium Research Group
Millennium Research Group (www.MRG.net), a Decision Resources, Inc. company (www.DecisionResourcesInc.com), is the global authority on medical technology market intelligence and the leading provider of strategic information to the healthcare sector. The company provides specialized industry expertise through multiclient market research, ongoing Marketrack™ projects, customer loyalty tracking, facility-level procedure forecasting, and customized solutions.

About Decision Resources Group
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SOURCE Millennium Research Group