Doctors Across the Nation Support CryoLife, Inc.; Physicians Voice Support in Media
Yesterday in the New York Times, Dr. Warren King, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California, said he did 400 to 500 allografts a year, mostly for sports injuries, and had only seen one serious infection in more than eight years. "These products are safe and effective," he said. "They allow us to eliminate a tremendous amount of pain and suffering."
The article noted that Dr. King used CryoLife products for repairing knees because he believed that the material was superior to what other companies made. For example, CryoLife frozen knee cartilage "looks better and feels better."
"They do cryopreservation, which keeps the tissue healthier and alive," he added. "Maybe that keeps some bacteria healthy and alive, too, but with proper handling the risks can be greatly reduced."
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reported, "Pediatric surgery centers in Minnesota routinely use CryoLife's donor tissue, surgeons said. On Thursday, surgeons were checking whether they had non-CryoLife valves available in case of a recall."
"A recall of heart valves 'would be severe,' said Dr. Cynthia Herrington, a pediatric heart surgeon at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Although other companies also provide them, such valves are in extremely short supply because of the shortage of such tissue donors. Valves for infants and children are in even shorter supply, because they must come from child donors."
"'There is a lot of anger among pediatric heart surgeons that this could happen,' Herrington said of the prospect of an FDA action against CryoLife's heart valves. Because the risk of infection from a human heart valve is extremely low, 'we would like to see better evidence that there is a [safety] issue,' she said."
"We're very worried about it," said Dr. Rocky Daly, a heart surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
On July 16, 2002 on the Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA-TV, Dr. Eric Carson, an orthopaedic surgeon with Resurgens Orthopaedics in Atlanta stated, "I do use their tissue and I think they do a good job at what they do."
Founded in 1984, CryoLife, Inc. is a leader in the development and commercialization of implantable living human tissues for use in cardiovascular, vascular and orthopaedic surgeries throughout the United States and Canada. The Company's BioGlue(R) surgical adhesive is FDA approved as an adjunct to sutures and staples for use in adult patients in open surgical repair of large vessels and is CE marked in the European Community and approved in Canada and Australia for use in vascular and pulmonary sealing and repair. The Company also manufactures the SynerGraft(R) heart valve and the SynerGraft vascular graft, the world's first tissue-engineered heart valve and vascular replacements, and the CryoLife-O'Brien(R) and CryoLife-Ross(R) stentless porcine heart valves, which are CE marked for distribution within the European Community. The human heart valves processed by CryoLife using the SynerGraft technology are distributed in the U.S. under the trade name CryoValve(R)SG.
For additional information about the company, visit CryoLife's web site: http://www.cryolife.com
For the complete news stories go to:
www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/health/15TISS/html
www.11alive.com/help/search/search_article.asp?storyid=19124&searchdata=CryoLi
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www.startribune.com/stories/484/3167780.html
Contact: D. Ashley Lee
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
(770) 419-3355