Taipei, China – From January 12 to 13, the Taiwan Transcatheter Therapeutics Live Course ("TTT"), which was a major event for coronary intervention in Taiwan, was held at NTUH International Convention Center in Taipei, China. Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("MicroPort®") brought the Firehawk® Rapamycin Target Eluting Coronary Stent System ("Firehawk®") to the TTT for the first time, and presented to a large audience the clinical performance and scientific results of Firehawk® through satellite conference, symposium and live streaming of operations.
On the evening of January 11, MicroPort® hosted a "Less is More: Firehawk® Evening Satellite Conference" ahead of the opening of the TTT, with the attendance of 40 healthcare professionals from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Prof. Wei-Hsian Yin, MD, who is Chief of Division of Cardiology from the Heart Center at Cheng Hsin General Hospital and chairman of the TTT in 2019, delivered an opening remark as chairman of the satellite conference. During the satellite conference, a total of six physicians, who were Chengyi Xu from Wuhan Asia Heart Hospital, Chun-Wei Lee from the cardiology department of Mackay Memorial Hospital, Chengzhi Lu from Tianjin First Central Hospital, Bu-Yuan Hsiao from Division of Cardiology with the Heart Center at Cheng Hsin General Hospital, Junqing Yang from the cardiology department of Guangdong General Hospital, and Fa-Chang Yu from the cardiology department of Mackay Memorial Hospital, spoke of the application of Firehawk® in various complex cases and demonstrated the capacity of Firehawk® in the handling of lesions. The healthcare professionals in attendance also discussed how the therapeutic solution can be optimized, and Chun-Chieh Liu from the catheterization laboratory of Mackay Memorial Hospital Tamshui Branch, Hsu-Lung Jen from Division of Cardiology with the Heart Center at Cheng Hsin General Hospital, and Feng-Yu Kuo from the cardiology department of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital gave their favorable reviews and recognition to Firehawk®.
At noon of January 12, which was the first day of the TTT, MicroPort® hosted a luncheon symposium on Firehawk® with the attendance of about 250 healthcare professionals. At first, Prof. Wei-Hsian Yin, MD, introduced the features of Firehawk®. Then Prof. Jie Qian from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Fuwai Hospital and Prof. Niels van Royen from Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands presented the 5-year results of the Firehawk® TARGET series clinical trial and the primary endpoint data and secondary endpoint data from the TARGET All Comers clinical study respectively, which further proved the safety and efficacy of Firehawk®. Hsu-Lung Jen, Feng-Yu Kuo and Cheng-Ting Tsai from the catheterization laboratory of Mackay Memorial Hospital spoke of their clinical experience with Firehawk®. They also recognized the deliverability and crossability of Firehawk®. Firehawk® showed excellent performance in the treatment of complex lesions such as left main, chronic total occlusions (CTO) and severely calcified lesions. Prof. Hsien-Li Kao from National Taiwan University Hospital commented that the abluminal laser cut grooves of Firehawk® is a unique innovation.
On the evening of January 12, a total of five healthcare professionals from Chinese mainland were invited to share challenging cases of Firehawk® with local experts during the session of "Guideline and Practice – Clinical Case-Based Conference" of the TTT. Chengzhi Lu, Junqing Yang, Chengyi Xu, Fei Wang from Shanxi Cardiovascular Hospital and Tao Geng from Cangzhou Central Hospital spoke of the use of Firehawk® in the cases of CTO, complex calcified lesions and STEMI respectively, demonstrating the performance of Firehawk® in terms of deliverability, trackability, radial strength and good healing. Their speeches substantially boosted the recognition of the quality of MicroPort® products among local interventional cardiologists.
On the morning of January 13, a Firehawk® surgery performed by Prof. Hsien-Li Kao was live-streamed at the TTT. The case was a complex right coronary artery CTO. The 61-year-old male patient was diagnosed with diffuse bifurcation lesions in LAD, two CTO lesions at the right coronary artery with stable angina. Two years ago, the patient had undergone two previous PCI treatment, where the wires could not pass the lesions at the right coronary artery due to tortuous collateral vessel. Prof. Hsien-Li Kao adopted the retrograde wire technique and managed to reach the lesions through atrioventricular artery. After three full pre-dilation, he implanted a 2.5mm*23mm Firehawk® and a 3.0mm*38mm Firehawk® at the distal and proximal right coronary artery respectively, and post-dilated the lesion with non-complaint balloon. The procedure turned out to be very successful and smooth. The operational strategy and brilliant skills of Prof. Hsien-Li Kao were well received by the healthcare professionals in attendance. The live case of treating complex lesions such as CTO, deepened the physicians' understandings of Firehawk®'s performance, and laid a solid groundwork to expand Taiwan's local market further.
The revolutionary third-generation drug-eluting stent Firehawk® is the result of eight years of research and development of MicroPort®, and it is the world's first successfully commercialized drug-eluting stent featuring strut in-groove coating and precision target drug-releasing patent technology. Its safety and efficacy have been proved in high-level evidence-based clinical trials. Moreover, the results from the large-scale Firehawk® TARGET AC trial conducted in Europe have been published in the world leading medical journal the Lancet. Its debut at TTT 2019 is expected to help the interventional cardiologists in Taiwan deepen their understanding of Firehawk®, which will benefit more local patients. In the future, MicroPort® will be continually committed to the introduction of more outstanding high-end medical device products and services into the Taiwan market, to provide the patients with a more comprehensive therapeutic solution.