C. R. Bard announced that its Lutonix 035 Drug Coated Balloon (DCB) Catheter received FDA approval and is being made available in the U.S. According to the company, the device is intended for “percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), after pre-dilatation, for the treatment of de novo or restenotic lesions up to 150mm in length in native vascular disease of the superficial femoral or popliteal arteries with reference vessel diameters of 4-6mm.”
This is the first drug coated (paclitaxel) balloon catheter approved in the U.S. and it’s been available in the European market since 2012.
From the announcement:
FDA approval of the Lutonix® 035 DCB was supported by results of the LEVANT 2 pivotal study, a global, prospective, single-blind, randomized, 54-site study (42 sites in the U.S. and 12 in Europe) that enrolled all patients under one protocol. At one year, the LEVANT 2 study demonstrated improved patency of the Lutonix® 035 DCB compared to standard PTA: 73.5 percent vs. 56.8 percent, p<0.001 by Kaplan-Meier time-to-event analysis. It also demonstrated clinical benefits of sustained improvement in Rutherford Class and improved walking distance scores. The LEVANT 2 study followed a rigorous blinding protocol designed to reduce bias in the results to accurately and scientifically assess and compare the long-term performance of key clinical measures. The LEVANT clinical program, which includes registry data, enrolled more than 1,000 patients and demonstrated robust safety of the device comparable to PTA, including the same low rate of distal embolic events and rate of reintervention for thrombotic events.
