Health Highlights: Sept. 21, 2007
Mar. 23 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,compiled by editors of HealthDay:
FDA Urged to Ease Patient Restrictions for Heart Ablation Trials
Experts say the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should ease restrictions on which patients with a common heart condition called atrial fibrillation can be enrolled in clinical trials of devices used to provide a treatment called ablation, The New York Times reported.
That was one of the suggestions offered Thursday by a panel of experts at a daylong meeting on clinical trials for treatments of atrial fibrillation, a nonfatal but distressing condition in which electrical shortcircuits in the upper chambers of the heart cause rapid, erratic contraction. The condition affects about 2.2 million Americans.
Ablation involves burning or freezing certain areas of the atrial muscle to either eliminate the source of the irregular pulses or to block the pathways they travel. This common method of treatment is used when drug therapy fails or causes intolerable side effects, the Times reported.
"We have to be more flexible," Dr. Bram Zuckerman, director of the FDA's cardiovascular devices division, said in response to the expert panel's remarks about rapidly evolving technology for treating atrial fibrillation.
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Simplicity Recalls Cribs Linked to Deaths of 3 Babies
About one million Chinese-made cribs have been voluntarily recalled by Simplicity Inc. because problems with the drop rail can create a dangerous gap that poses a risk of suffocation and entrapment. The cribs have been linked to the deaths of at least three children in the United States, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday.
The three babies -- ages 6 months, 9 months, and 1 year -- died in cribs where the drop rail was installed upside down due to poor hardware and crib design, the Chicago Tribune reported. The CPSC said it's also aware of seven infant entrapments and 55 incidents in these cribs.
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