CryoCor says cryoablation causes fewer fistual-like esophageal lesions in animals than traditional therapy

By Angela McDaniels

Seattle, Nov. 14 - CryoCor Inc. said it has positive clinical data from an animal study that evaluated the potential of its cryoablation treatment to produce esophageal injury, a well-documented complication of radio-frequency ablation in the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation.

The study was designed to test the hypothesis that cryoablation, due to the way it affects the tissue, has a lower potential to cause this complication, the company said.

In the animal study, 47 lesions were made on the esophagus of 8 animals, 21 using cryoablation and 26 using radio-frequency ablation.

At two weeks, fistual-like lesions had developed in the esophageal wall in 2 of the 12 lesions produced as a consequence of radio-frequency ablation while none of the 14 lesions caused by cryoablation had produced fistual-like lesions.

"We are very pleased to see that the results from this animal study are suggestive of differences between the two energy modalities with respect to propensity to create fistuals," chief executive officer Gregory Ayers said in a company news release.

"We believe that these data underpin why we have not seen esophageal fistuals in any patients treated for atrial fibrillation with our CryoCor Cardiac Cryoablation System."

The data was presented Monday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Dallas.

CryoCor is a medical technology company based in San Diego that has developed and manufactures a disposable catheter system for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.

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