MINNEAPOLIS, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Kurt Amplatz, the founder of AGA Medical Corporation, will receive the Leaders in Innovation Award from the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Foundation during the SIR’s 30th Annual Scientific Meeting March 31-April 5 in New Orleans.
SIR Foundation Chairman Dr. Joseph Boon will present Dr. Amplatz with the award during the SIR Plenary Session April 4 in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center auditorium. The Leaders in Innovation award recognizes an individual who has conceptualized and implemented an idea -- a device, technique, approach, a clinical practice model -- having a significant improvement on the quality of patient care or economics of interventional radiology.
One of Dr. Amplatz’s innovations to be highlighted at SIR is the AMPLATZER(R) Vascular Plug, a unique implantable occlusion device that gives physicians a minimally invasive alternative for correcting an array of common vascular disorders. Besides being featured during the Leaders in Innovation award ceremony, the device will be showcased throughout the SIR meeting via a special SIR New Product Showcase(TM).
About Dr. Kurt Amplatz
Dr. Amplatz, a longtime SIR member, is widely regarded as a pioneer in interventional radiology. His inventions encompass many of the field’s fundamental tools, including several models of guidewires, renal dilators and sheaths, thrombectomy devices, goose-neck snares and vena cava filters.
Born in Weistrach, Austria, in 1924, Amplatz attended medical school at the University of Innsbruck. For much of his career he was a professor of radiology at the University of Minnesota Hospitals, where he retired in 1999. Dr. Amplatz has been awarded gold medals for distinguished service to radiology by the American College of Radiology, the European Congress of Radiology, and the American Roentgen Ray Society.
In founding AGA Medical Corporation in 1995, Dr. Amplatz launched what has since become the world’s leading manufacturer of transcatheter occlusion devices for treating cardiac and vascular defects. Today Dr. Amplatz serves as the company’s chairman and chief science and technology officer.
About the AMPLATZER Vascular Plug
The AMPLATZER Vascular Plug is one in a growing family of minimally invasive, implantable occlusion devices developed and manufactured by AGA Medical, and the company’s first device intended for implantation within the radiology lab, by interventional radiologists.
In 2004 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted clearance of the AMPLATZER Vascular Plug for arterial and venous embolizations in the peripheral vasculature. Previously, the two most common treatments for peripheral vascular disorders had been surgery or implantable coils, which are designed to induce blood clotting. The AMPLATZER Vascular Plug may be used to treat:
* Aortopulmonary Collaterals * Arteriovenous Malformation * Surgical Aortopulmonary Shunts * Anomalous Venovenous Connections * Arteriovenous Fistulas * Peripheral Vessels
Unlike some coil technologies, which are embolized (released into the blood vessel) in a less-controlled fashion, the AMPLATZER Vascular Plug can be placed, repositioned if necessary, and finally released in a precise and controlled manner.
The self-expandable, cylindrical device is made of Nitinol-wire mesh and is available in diameters ranging from 4 mm to 16 mm. Nitinol’s super-elastic properties allow the device to compress inside a catheter, then spring back to full size once situated within the blood vessel. The device’s Nitinol-wire frame provides strong radial traction that holds it securely within a vessel wall. The device is also non-magnetic, and therefore compatible with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.
The population of patients who could be candidates for the AMPLATZER Vascular Plug is estimated to number in the tens of thousands annually. In 2002 an estimated 26,000 vascular occlusion procedures using coils were performed in the United States.
AGA Medical Corporation, a Minneapolis-based company, is the world’s leading manufacturer of transcatheter occlusion devices that empower minimally invasive treatment of heart and vascular defects. For more information, visit http://www.amplatzer.com/ .
AGA Medical Corporation
CONTACT: Kelly Plummer, +1-651-207-6242, or plumski@comcast.net , forAGA Medical Corporation
Web site: http://www.amplatzer.com/