US Patent Issued to Elixir Medical on July 14 for "Methods and apparatus for plaque disruption" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,678,180, issued on July 14, was assigned to Elixir Medical Corp. (Milpitas, Calif.).

"Methods and apparatus for plaque disruption" was invented by Motasim Sirhan (Los Altos, Calif.), Benjamyn Serna (Gilroy, Calif.), Bozena Treadwell (Aptos, Calif.) and John Yan (Los Gatos, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Balloon catheters, sleeves, cages, and endoluminal prostheses are provided with stress-applying and spacing features coupled to expandable surfaces thereof. The stress-applying features may have blunt and/or rounded contact regions which contact tissue or calcified regions in the vasculature. The contact regions dent or fracture oc...