Record turnout emphasizes the growing interest in PAD.

VIVA conference

Record turnout emphasizes the growing interest in PAD

By LARRY HAIMOVITCH

Medical Device Daily Contributing Writer

LAS VEGAS u The sixth annual Vascular Interventional Advances (VIVA) meeting, which describes itself as "the national education course for vascular intervention and medicine," took place here last week. Record attendance was fueled by an outstanding program, an excellent new venue at the Wynn Resort and the increasing recognition that peripheral arterial disease (PAD) represents an enormous market opportunity with a plethora of unsolved clinical issues.

PAD is a progressive disease that affects 11 million to 12 million people in the U.S., and with the aging of the population and the pandemic of obesity-induced diabetes, the incidence is growing rapidly. Within that group of patients, somewhere between 1 million and 3 million suffer from debilitating leg claudication (disability of walking due to crippling of the legs), which causes pain, reduced mobility and in many cases, depression.

Among the important "takeaways" from the VIVA conference is that while the interventional tools to treat PAD have improved significantly in recent years, there is a need for further innovation. The current set of toolsuwhich include stents, balloons, atherectomy devices such as lasers and rotational "gizmos," thrombolysis, drugs and bypass grafts u often are not successful on a stand-alone basis and typically several devices are required to recanalize the artery.