What happened
On a piece of encouraging news from the laboratory, healthcare sector mainstay Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) saw its stock price rise by nearly 2% on Tuesday. That convincingly beat the S&P 500 index's performance on the day; the bellwether index went in the opposite direction, sliding by 0.3%.
So what
Abbott announced that late-breaking data from a clinical study indicate that the company's Navitor transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) system is a safe and effective treatment for certain heart patients. Specifically, this concerns patients with severe, symptomatic aortic stenosis (a narrowing of the valve in the heart's main artery).
Abbott added that the study indicated a 97% rate of procedural success with the system, accompanied by low rates of all-cause mortality and disabling stroke (both 1.9%) at 30 days.
Also receiving high marks from the latest research was another of the healthcare company's heart products, the Amplatzer Amulet Left Atrial Appendage (LAA) Occluder. Abbott said that the device was shown to have fewer unresolved and severe peri-device leaks than a competing product, Boston Scientific's Watchman.
Now what
In the announcement, Abbott's Senior Vice President of the Structural Heart division Michael Dale said, "These results for Navitor and Amulet demonstrate that the innovative designs of our minimally invasive devices are changing how doctors are approaching -- and patients are experiencing -- the treatment of structural heart conditions."
This is particularly encouraging because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 700,000 Americans died of heart disease in 2020.
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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Abbott Laboratories. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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