Amsterdam, Netherlands – October 8, 2015—ClearFlow Inc., a medical device company based in Anaheim, California, USA, exhibited its innovative PleuraFlow® Active Clearance Technology® System at the 29^th annual Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) meeting in Amsterdam this week.

The EACTS Annual Meeting is the largest cardio-thoracic meeting in the world, a position it has maintained for over a decade, and this year’s event featured ClearFlow’s PleuraFlow technology for the first time.

The PleuraFlow System uses a first of its kind technology to enable caregivers to proactively keep chest drainage tubes clear of blood clotting after heart surgery.

Earlier this year, clinical investigators from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin’s Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine presented clinical data from 6,909 cardio-thoracic patients. Results from the data revealed that more than 16% of the cardiac surgery patients studied required reinterventions to deal with complications related to Retained Blood Syndrome (RBS). Patients who required reinterventions were reported to have a statistically significant increase in mortality, longer ICU and hospital stays as well as higher incidence of hemodialysis and longer ventilator time, complicating their post-operative recovery.

“Mounting data from multiple sources have clearly demonstrated that there is an unmet need for reduction of retained blood resulting from clogged chest tubes among patients recovering from cardiac surgery,” said ClearFlow’s CEO, Paul Molloy.  “It has been a privilege to exhibit here at EACTS where we have been able to discuss concerns surrounding RBS and share our PleuraFlow solution with many of the world’s leading surgeons. Heart surgery patients often unnecessarily require additional interventional procedures, longer ICU and hospital stays, hospital re-admissions – and sometimes even death – due to the complications caused by inadequate drainage. PleuraFlow is an easy to use medical device that has been shown to significantly lower these common and expensive hospital complications.”

The bottom line is that preventing retained blood in the chest can translate to better patient outcomes,” added Molloy, “and it was rewarding to experience such a warm reception among the forward-thinking clinicians we met here in Amsterdam this week.”

A common issue in hospitals, complete chest tube obstruction is known to occur in 36% of heart surgery patients, and nearly one in five can have some form of complication that includes the need to perform subsequent re-operation or interventions to remove blood, blood clot or bloody fluid from the pericardial or pleural spaces after cardiac surgery.

The PleuraFlow Active Clearance Technology System is approved for use in Europe, Australia, Brazil, the U.S. and Canada, and has either cleared or is pending clearance in over a dozen additional countries.

 

About ClearFlow, Inc.

ClearFlow, Inc. is an Anaheim, CA based medical device company that has developed a patented active blood and fluid evacuation system to speed recovery, reduce complications and lower healthcare costs related to medical tube obstruction. The company has been awarded several prestigious awards, including the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgeons Techno-College Innovation Award for worldwide innovation that has the potential to change the standard of care in heart and lung surgery, and the Innovations in Cardiovascular Interventions Award, among others.

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 PleuraFlow and Active Clearance Technology are registered trademarks of ClearFlow, Inc.

 

Media Contact:
Paul Williams
310/569-0023
paul@medialinecommunications.com