CEO Arthur Collins

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Minnesota state court judge has dismissed a batch of lawsuits against Medtronic Inc stemming from the October 2007 recall of the medical device maker's Sprint Fidelis defibrillator leads. Minnesota District Court Judge Denise Reilly last week granted a motion by Medtronic to dismiss 600 separate personal injury claims related to use of the leads, which connect an implantable cardioverter defibrillator to a patient's heart and are the conduit for the electricity used to shock the heart back into normal rhythm. The judge ruled the claims are preempted under federal law, according to court papers. In January, a U.S. district court ... Read Full Story

Date Published: Thursday, November 5th, 2009 Three more lawsuits have been filed against Medtronic, Medtronic USA, Medtronic International Technology, and Medtronic Puerto Rico Operations , reports the Madison Record. The three individuals, residents of Illinois, allege in their 60-count suit, that they suffer sudden shocks after being implanted with defective defibrillators made by the device maker, according to the Madison Record. The complaints state that Lillian Tengstrand, Effie Thomas, and Marcus Williams received the implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs), which are surgically placed under the skin of the chest wall to decrease and increase heart rates, explained the Madison Record. Lead wires are placed into ... Read Full Story

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Medtronic Inc said the number of deaths in which fractured defibrillator wires may have been a "possible or likely contributing factor" have risen to 13, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The wires, called "leads," went by the brand name Sprint Fidelis until they were pulled from the world market in October 2007. The leads are designed to carry electrical jolts to the heart and correct erratic heartbeats. The newspaper said the new numbers, contained in a letter to doctors, were the company's first update of its death estimate since the Sprint Fidelis -- once the No. 1 such device ... Read Full Story

The Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2010 were announced yeterday at the seventh annual Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit. In developing the Top 10, Cleveland Clinic enlisted the expertise of AlixPartners, LLP, an independent international management advisory firm. AlixPartners led the process to probe the opinions of Cleveland Clinic physicians and researchers, create a field of nominated innovative technologies for consideration, and develop a consensus perspective on the Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2010. Cleveland Clinic's Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2010 list features a wide range of new techniques and therapies that are being developed to treat everything from deafness, Parkinson's disease, pneumonia, ... Read Full Story

Medical device maker Medtronic Inc. says 13 patients have likely died as a result of problems with its heart device wires which were first disclosed in 2007. The Minneapolis-based company pulled its Sprint Fidelis defibrillator leads off the market in October 2007 after identifying five patient deaths that may have been caused by the cracked wires. In a letter sent to physicians Friday, Medtronic raised the number of estimated deaths to 13. The company notes that four deaths occurred when physicians tried to extract the wires. Medtronic has recommended patients leave the devices in because the risk of surgery may outweigh the risk of ... Read Full Story