Currently we are running the following studies on the drug-coated balloon technology:

-A randomized controlled trial of new-generation DCB vs new generation DES for the treatment of small coronary vessel disease: a spontaneous, multicenter clinical trial. You can find the study protocol in this page.

-the Falcon Registry: a prospective registry on the In.Pact Falcon (Medtronic) DCB, for any coronary clinical indication. This is a multicenter international registry. I am the Italian P.I. for this study. You can find the study protocol in this page.

-The Italian Elutax SV all-comers Registry: a retrospective multicenter registry on the use of the Elutax SV DCB for coronary applications. We are the coordinating center for this national study.

-The DCB Restore Registry: a retrospective multicenter registry on the use of the Restore DCB for coronary applications. We are the coordinating center for this study. I have the dream of running it internationally, and I’m working on this item.

SeQuent Please NEO “DCB ONLY APPROACH”: publish or Up-To-Date Scientific Data – B.Braun 2020 Webinar

Watch this video to discover something about SeQuent Please NEO: Clinically proven Polymer-free Drug Coated Balloon Catheter – NSE Alpha: Scoring Balloon Catheter for effective lesion preparation.

Speaker: Bernardo Cortese

Gise Webinar, Virtual Edition

WEBINAR: Sirolimus-coated balloons, an appraisal on its potential advantages over paclitaxel

Watch this roundtable discussion if you want:

  • To learn and understand how and where to use a Sirolimus DCB in current practice
  • To see clinical evidence and results for the treatment of patients with Sirolimus DCB
  • To see the potential advantages of using the Sirolimus over Paclitaxel

Speakers: Antonio Colombo, Bernardo Cortese, Sandeep Basavarajaiah

 

EASTBOURNE registry finished the enrollment

EASTBOURNE

EASTBOURNE registry finished the enrollment a few days ago, with the terrific number of 2100 patients reached: this is the largest coronary DCB study ever done.

EASTBOURNE is a prospective registry and will describe the immediate and long term performance of the novel Magic Touch sirolimus-coated balloon for any coronary application. Interesting, this is an investigator-driven study without bias or inferences from the industry.

I want to congratulate each investigator of the study and Prof Antonio Colombo, co-chairman of the study.

Top enrollers are: L. Testa, T. Heang, A. Ielasi, I. Bossi, R. Latini, L. Yan, I. Sanchez, D. Milazzo, G. Caiazzo, F. Tomai, G. Di Palma, S. Benincasa, M. Montorfano, A. Nuruddin, G. Stefanini, G. Seresini, R. Singh, G. Cacucci.

You can find the interim analysis publication (600 pts @1y.) here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32740442/

Stay tuned!

__________

Bernardo Cortese, MD FESC

DCB clinical data and the role of scoring balloon in preparing the lesion-Webinar during GISE 2020

Quale ruolo ha la predilatazione prima dell’impiago del pallone medicato? Cosa è preferibile usa per preparare ottimamente la lesione? Revisione dei dati clinici del pallone medicato Sequent Please

Check out my new YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFYPtYvvLOM

First patient enrolled in TRANSFORM I RCT

Hotline release-T1 on the go

“Well Begun!!! … Index patient enrolled in the crucial Transform -1 RCT using MagicTouch sirolimus coated balloon for small coronary vessels”.

 

Concept Medical Inc., focused on vascular intervention drug delivery devices, has announced the enrolment of the first patient in the TRANSFORM-1 RCT (TReAtmeNt of Small coronary vessels: Randomized controlled trial FORMagicTouch sirolimus coated balloon).

TRANSFORM-1 is a prospective, randomized, multi-center, European study focusing on coronary artery lesions in small vessels with a head-on comparison between sirolimus coated MagicTouch and paclitaxel coated SeQuent Please NEO of B. Braun. 114 patients are planned to be randomized 1:1 for Magic Touch or SeQuent Please NEO.

The primary objective of the study is to compare angiographic outcomes of MagicTouch sirolimus coated balloon with SeQuent Please NEO, for the treatment of de-novo coronary artery lesions in small vessels (≤2.5 mm) with respect to Net Gain (mm) at 6 months follow-up. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) will be conducted at baseline. Quantitative Coronary Angiography (QCA) assessment will be performed at baseline (pre- and post-procedure) and at 6 months follow-up. Quantitative OCT assessment will be performed at baseline. Clinical follow-up will occur at 1, 6 and 12 months post-PCI.

The study is chaired by Prof. Patrick Serruys, Ireland and Dr. Bernardo Cortese, Italy and the principal investigator is Prof. Antonio Colombo from Italy.

The index patient was enrolled at Maria Cecilia Hospital, Cotignola, Italy and went through successful PCI procedure onSeptember 1, 2020in Italy under the care of PI Prof. Antonio Colombo.

To quote Antonio Colombo on the index patient enrolment, “Transform-1 is launching a new standard in Drug Coated Balloon technology; let us enthusiastically make this study move forward.”.

Bernardo Cortese, the Chairman of the study was equally elated and remarked, This is great news. We struggled in the last couple of years to have one of the most modern and scientific study design that includes OCT for lesion assessment. We look forward to enrolling all the patients at the earliest by this remarkable group of Investigators.

 

Patrick Serruys, Professor of Interventional Medicine & Innovation, National University of Ireland, Galway was all praise, “I have to give full credit to Concept Medical and its CEO Manish Doshi for allowing key opinion leaders like Bernardo Cortese, and Antonio Colombo to perform an important mechanistic study based on OCT to diagnose truly small vessels and to attempt to demonstrate in a randomized trial the superior value of the Magic Touch SCB, a DCB technology that uses the powerful hydrophilic sirolimus encapsulated in lipidic microsphere with a deep vessel wall penetration and a long intra parietal residency. Many studies on small vessels are in fact misnomers since the precise calibre of the vessel was not carefully documented like we will do with the use of OCT in the TRANSFORM 1 study analysed in the CORRIB Core Lab at the National University of Ireland (NUI Galway) under the leadership of Prof. Yoshi Onuma”.

 

About MagicTouch:

MagicTouch is a CE approved and commercially marketed Sirolimus coated balloon, developed using proprietary Nanolute Technology. MagicTouch has been deployed in >50,000 patients in major global markets. Nanolute – the unique drug delivery technology platform of MagicTouch balloon, is designed to deliver sub-micron particles of Sirolimus which are then encapsulated in a biocompatible drug carrier. The carrier-complex is designed to reach the deepest layers of the vessel walls.

 

About Concept Medical Inc (CMI):

CMI is headquartered in Tampa, Florida and has operational offices in The Netherlands, Singapore and Brazil and manufacturing units in India. CMI specializes in developing drug-delivery systems and has unique and patented technology platforms that can be deployed to deliver any drug / pharmaceutical agent across the luminal surfaces of blood vessels.

 

 

Sirolimus: my interview during JIM 2020 on the current status of research concerning Sirolimus-coated balloons for coronary use

https://www.radcliffecardiology.com/JIM-2020-Sirolimus-DCB-Bernardo-Cortese

1. Why are Sirolimus DCBs needed as a technology?
2. How does the Sirolimus coating work?
3. What data supports there use in comparison to other DCBs?
4. When are you using DCBs in your practice?
5. What further research is required to validate sirolimus DCBs as the coating of choice?

Is paclitaxel associated with higher mortality? The DCB in periphery conundrum: my perspective

About one year ago, a metanalysis conducted by Dr. Katsanos and Coll. showed an increase in mortality following the use of paclitaxel-coated balloons / stents when used for femoro-popliteal PTA. The whole sector was evidently shocked as a result to this metanalysis, and many actions (some of them absolutely unjustified) have been taken since then.

After one year, after a necessary cooling off period and further analyses, it is time for me to take a clear position on the matter.

Therefore, we are presenting our point of view regarding the topic, as expressed in some published editorials.

Today we are presenting the last one:

“Mortality Increase and Paclitaxil-Coated Device Use” December 2019

Is paclitaxel associated with higher mortality? The DCB in periphery conundrum: my perspective

About one year ago, a metanalysis conducted by Dr. Katsanos and Coll. showed an increase in mortality following the use of paclitaxel-coated balloons / stents when used for femoro-popliteal PTA. The whole sector was evidently shocked as a result to this metanalysis, and many actions (some of them absolutely unjustified) have been taken since then.

After one year, after a necessary cooling off period and further analyses, it is time for me to take a clear position on the matter.

Therefore, we are presenting our point of view regarding the topic, as expressed in some published editorials.

Today we are presenting the following one:

“The hypothesis of an increased mortality following paclitaxel coated device use in peripheral vascular interventions (and the emerging era of meta-analysis based evidence)” 22.10.19

Is paclitaxel associated with higher mortality? The DCB in periphery conundrum: my perspective

About one year ago, a metanalysis conducted by Dr. Katsanos and Coll. showed an increase in mortality following the use of paclitaxel-coated balloons / stents when used for femoro-popliteal PTA. The whole sector was evidently shocked as a result to this metanalysis, and many actions (some of them absolutely unjustified) have been taken since then.

After one year, after a necessary cooling off period and further analyses, it is time for me to take a clear position on the matter.

Therefore, during the next weeks we are presenting our point of view regarding the topic, as expressed in some published editorials.

Today we are presenting the first one:

Use of Paclitaxel-Eluting Technologies in the Femoropopliteal Segment Under Scrutiny Over Possible Link to Late All-Cause Mortality: Time to Panic or an Opportunity to Resurge?” 26.02.19

DCB Book Springer ed. published

I am really proud to share the news on the publication of the DCB Book, edited by Springer U.S..

This is the most updated DCB textbook you can ever find. A panel of the most important experts worldwide participated to the project. I am really proud to share this extremely qualified group of physicians:

Patrick. W. Serruys, Kuniaki Takahashi, Dario Buccheri, Carlo Zivelonghi, Pierfrancesco Agostoni, Freek Nijhoff, Marco Ferrone, Juan F. Granada, Manish Doshi, Prakash Sojitra, Dinesh Shah, Sameer Dani, Alexandre Abizaid, Serdar Farhan, Birgit Vogel, Roxana Mehran, Fernando Alfonso, Javier Cuesta, Fernando Rivero, Marcos García Guimaraes, Teresa Bastante, Mostafa Elwany, Anouar Belkacemi, Pieter R. Stella, Gaetano Di Palma, U. Wickramarachchi, Simon C. Eccleshall, Donato Gerardi, Arturo Alfani, Giovanni Esposito, Eugenio Stabile, Dario Pellegrini, Roberto Nerla, Fausto Castriota, Alberto Cremonesi, Antonio Micari, Damiano Regazzoli, Marco Bruno Ancona, Pier Pasquale Leone, Azeem Latib, Satoru Mitomo, Richard J. Jabbour, Antonio Colombo.

 

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-92600-1?fbclid=IwAR3sEtWNbddRQV-bbIW327PtpVsGu-8CITaGuy1PoqnXoSYSVfjOz6OVquk#editorsandaffiliations

FASICO NATIVES study published!

I am proud to inform that FASICO NATIVES has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine.

After FASICO and NANOLUTE’ this is a crucial piece for the assessment of the safety and efficacy of Magic Touch sirolimus-eluting DCB. In this study, which will be available soon for the readers, we have conducted a core-lab assessment of the angiographic outcome of SCB for native coronary vessel disease. 

With more than one third of patients showing late lumen enlargement (just like the top-in-class paclitaxel DCB), the average LLL was 0.09mm in this cohort of consecutive small-vessel-disease patients.

Core lab analysis was performed by Cardialysis (Rotterdam, NL).

…waiting for the interim analysis of the EASTBOURNE study, 1043 patients, to be presented at EuroPCR 2019 as late breaking clinical trial!

 

Paclitaxel defendant for peripheral application-the point of some experts

Recently, a meta-analysis by Katsanos et a. showed an increase in late mortality after paclitaxel administration (either with DES or DCB) in the peripheral field (SFA).

The topic is hot and deserves a deep analysis of the available data. For the moment, our position regarding DCB is that the technology, if used in expert hands and following the available position papers, is safe and effective for the treatment of lower extremity disease.

Please, take a look at the recently published editorial of F Fanelli, T Zeller and myself in the Journal of Endovascular therapy.

 

Sirolimus coated balloon-presentation at DCB meeting in Birmingham UK

This is the short presentation for the DCB Course held in Birmingham, UK. This course, whose Director was S. Eccleshall, gathered the most experienced DCB-players worldwide. We shared our experiences and had fun – top experiences and science for the DCB fans!

SCB early clnical experience
FINAL DCB 8pp Flyer Proof

Nuove tecnologie e applicazioni per il pallone medicato nel 2017

A new pubblication about “Nuove tecnologie e applicazioni per il pallone medicato nel 2017” has been published on G Ital Cardiol 2017.

Authors: Bernardo Cortese (1,2), Gaetano Di Palma (1), Roberto Nerla (3), Antonio Micari (3)

(1) Cardiologia Interventistica, ASST Fatebenefratelli – Sacco, Milano
(2) U.O. Cardiologia Diagnostica e Interventistica, Fondazione “Gabriele Monasterio”-Regione Toscana – CNR, Massa
(3) Laboratorio di Cardio-Angiologia Diagnostica e Interventistica, Maria Cecilia Hospital, Cotignola (RA)

CONCLUSIONS
I DCB sono in grado di superare alcune importanti limitazioni degli stent senza perdere la capacità di inibizione della proliferazione neo-intimale, ma deve essere chiaro che questi costituiscono una componente della strategia di rivascolarizzazione ottimale per i nostri pazienti, sempre più complessi, piuttosto che un’alternativa ai DES. Mentre il loro ruolo nella ISR è ormai ben defnito, il trattamento di lesioni de novo, specie nel distretto coronarico, è la nuova frontiera e presenta ad oggi dati incoraggianti, ancorché preliminari. In ambito periferico, tali risultati sembrano non subire effetto di catch-up a 2-3 anni e si possono estendere sia a lesioni TASC A/B sia alle più complesse TASC C/D, così come alle sottopopolazioni di pazienti con lesioni severamente calcifche, dove l’aterectomia costituisce un valido alleato del DCB, o la ISR.
I diversi DCB attualmente in commercio differiscono per la tecnologia che ne è alla base e, pertanto, hanno fornito risultati differenti in termini di effcacia a lungo termine, il che suggerisce l’assenza di un “effetto di classe” per i DCB in generale. Ogni differente tecnologia ha l’obbligo di dimostrare la sua effcacia e sicurezza in studi di adeguata ampiezza, qualità e rigore che possano confermare l’utilità nella pratica clinica dei dispositivi che entreranno in commercio da qui in avanti.

Here is the full article:
9 DCB review GIC 2017

EURO PCR 2017 – One year clinical outcome of percutaneous treatment with Sirolimus eluting balloons: Results from Nanolute prospective registry

During the EuroPCR 2017, I have presented theOne year clinical outcome of percutaneous treatment with Sirolimus eluting balloons: Results from Nanolute prospective registry.

Prospective, Multi‐center clinical registry real world, all comers patients at various indian Interventional Cardiology Sites. Clinical Follow-up at 1,6 and 12 Months.

4 IMG_3831

Conclusion

SCB might constitute a new therapeutic option, considering the overall complexity of modern-era interventional cardiology.
The results of this registry, performed in indian patients, are encouraging, but deserve more complete clinical assessment in broader patients populations.
A synergistic DCB use with new-generation DES is intriguing

Here’s the presentation of the meeting

4 NANOLUTE' presentation

Investigator Meeting EASTBOURNE Registry @Euro PCR 2017

1 IMG_3821  During the EuroPCR 2017, I met 45 PI of the EASTBOURNE Registry to talk about the end point and the trend of      the Study. There were PI from all around the world (Spain, China, Italy, Japan, England, India, etc.).

The EASTBOURNE Registry, thE All-comers Sirolimus-coaTed BallOon eURopeaN rEgistry, has been created to observe and evaluate the performance of a Sirolimus-
eluting Drug-Coated Balloon (SCB) for the treatment of any type of coronary lesions, including native vessel disease and in-stent restenosis.

The Registry has the following characteristics:
•Prospective, multicenter, spontaneous clinical registry
•Consecutive enrollment
•real world, all comers patients

Here’s the presentation of the meeting

1 EASTBOURNE Investigator Meeting

Sirolimus-coated Balloon: FIRST HUMAN USE

Great news-a few days ago I had the chance to use a sirolimus-coated balloon for coronary PCI in the first european patient (to say the truth, the first patient of the western world)!!

This very promising device just obtained the CE Mark for this application. A long way is ahead and I am really excited to be part of this adventure in designing a strict scientific program on the matter. In fact, no one wants to repeat the mistakes of the paclitaxel-eluting technology, that has only now reached a reliable scientific background.

CLIC meeting at Caltanissetta, Sicily

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure to be invited at the CLIC, a cardiovascular meeting organized by Dr Amico in Caltanissetta. The event had the scientific background of some renown physicians from the group of Prof Tamburino in Catania, and I had the pleasure to be the only “continental” physician invited!

The meeting was of high scientific level and the discussion was interactive and interesting.

I contributed with a speech entitled “Incomplete revascularization and drug-coated balloons”, a setting where DCB may have a specific role. I also gave some contributions regarding biovascular scaffolds during the discussion. Give a look at the nice pics.

 

Letter in response to the Editorial of JACC Int

A few weeks ago, our study on DCB in native coronary vessels left with a dissection was published in JACC Int, and we had the honor of receiving a dedicated Editorial from 2 experts on the field: R Byrne and M Joner. Their conclusion was different from ours from several points of view, so we deemed necessary to underline further aspects and we wrote a Letter to the Editor.

Effect of drug-coated balloons in native coronary artery disease left with a dissection. J Am Coll Cardiol Intv. 2015

This important paper from our group was just published in JACC Interventions, and commented on TCTMD.

Please see comments here:

http://www.tctmd.com/show.aspx?id=133232&utm_source=2015-11-30-tctmd-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tctmd-newsletter

Research organization for the year 2015

For the current year, the Scientific Research at the cardiac Dpt. will have the following actors:

 

Head of cardiovascular research: Bernardo Cortese, MD

Assistant at research: Roberto Latini, MD

Fellows: Davide Piraino, MD, Dario Buccheri, MD

Data Manager: Elena Galfrascoli, Pharm D, Sophia Campbell, Pharm D (pic)

Data Monitor: Lorenzo Cagliani, Eng