The American College of Cardiology (ACC) www.acc.org has launched the “Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion” (LAAO), a new registry able to capture data on a new class of medical devices used in left atrial appendage occlusion procedures.
The left atrial appendage is a muscular pouch connected to the left atrium of the heart where blood can gather and lead to blood clots that can cause stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. However, closure procedures and devices can reduce stroke risk as an alternative to medications used by patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation.
The LAAO Registry will help to assess real world procedural indications and outcomes as well as short and long term safety procedures and devices for closing the left atrial appendage. The Registry will also serve not only as the formal FDA-mandated post approval study for the WATCHMAN device, but it is also expected to serve as a long term clinical registry for all patients undergoing occlusion of the left atrial appendage, regardless of the device used.
The new clinical registry program joins eight other programs that comprise the National Cardiovascular Data Registry. The ACC’s suite of cardiovascular data registries help hospitals and clinical practices measure and improve the quality of care they provide. In addition an atrial fibrillation ablation registry, called the “AFib Ablation Registry” is expected to launch in 2016.