Among the greatest strides made in health care in the latter part of the twentieth century were advances in treating heart disease. While coronary artery disease remains the single leading cause of death in the US, killing more than 500,000 Americans each year, the death rate over the last half century has dropped by half and the onset of heart disease has been pushed back generally by 15 to 20 years. Medical device developments like balloon-tipped catheters, coronary stents and heart stabilizers played a key role in that process, facilitating new clinical techniques such as angioplasty and coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Those innovations were, of course, accompanied by improvements in diagnostic imaging technologies and pharmaceuticals.
The future of cardiovascular devices lies both in refining existing devices (e.g., coated stents and smaller stents for smaller vessels,...
