This article is from in the December 2007 issue of DOTmed Business News. A list of registered users that provide sales & service can be found at the end.

The American Heart Association says sudden cardiac arrest claims 900 plus lives a day. And for those that survive the initial attack, the survival rate is low, about five percent is the national average.

But while medical communities across the country are continuously working to improve response rates and obtain equipment to treat victims of cardiac disease or sudden cardiac arrest, they've having second thoughts about their first line of defense: internal and external cardiac defibrillators.

Although manufacturers have increased production of cost effective defibrillators, and also continue to develop high-end products to maintain revenue and profits, technical problems besetting existing equipment has thrown the market into a bit of turmoil. On a worldwide scale, incidentally, the defibrillator market is estimated at about $6 billion in annual turnover. But the outlook for defibrillators, which jump-start the heart via electrical charges once it's stopped, is a bit murky right now.

Frequent recalls have rocked this market with sales of heart-shocking cardiac devices, once hot sellers, now floundering somewhat. Medtronic, Inc. took the latest hit, voluntarily recalling its Sprint Fidelis implanted defibrillator (ICD) leads in early October. This recall focused on 235,000 leads that may fracture causing a patient to receive unnecessary electrical jolts or no jolt at all when needed. In 2005, Medtronic recalled around 87,000 implantable cardioverter defibrillators after faulty batteries were discovered. This year too, Guidant Corporation, now part of Boston Scientific Corp., also recalled 50,000 defibrillator devices after it was found that some could short circuit causing major safety concerns. Last month, Boston Scientific announced worldwide job cuts of more than 2,000 employees after posting net losses for the quarter ending September 30, of $272 million.

So little wonder that the medical community and their patients are a little antsy, wondering whether getting an implantable defibrillator is worth the risk. It also has industry experts, who were once predicting strong sales increase in the defibrillator market for 2008, shying away from that prediction. In fact, Medtronic has reported a decline in the US implantable defibrillation market starting in 2007's first quarter and has continued the downward slide through the year. Medtronic has maintained market share of approximately half of the entire defibrillator market, with Boston Scientific (Guidant) and Canada-based St. Jude Medical, Inc. picking up the rest.

More Industry Reports