Peripheral Vascular Disease Grows at Double-Digit Rates, Waits for Solutions

New technologies are wanted for peripheral artery disease, which affects 12 to 14 million people in the US, two to three million of them serious enough to warrant intervention, according to "US Markets for Interventional Peripheral Vascular Disease Management Products and Technologies," a report recently issued by Windhover-Elsevier. In addition to peripheral arterial disease, approximately eight million people in the US suffer from chronic venous insufficiency, of whom more than three million develop venous ulcers. Aortic aneurysms affect another two million people in the US, and the prevalence is increasing due to the increasing number of the elderly. But one of the largest serious problems in peripheral vascular disease that has few solutions is deep vein thrombosis (DVT). In the US approximately 25 million suffer from this condition and two million more are diagnosed each year. DVT brings the danger of pulmonary embolism and death. These and other categories in peripheral vascular disease are forecast to grow by double-digit rates, including mechanical atherectomy systems, chronic total occlusion crossing systems, and endovascular cryotherapy systems.