Letter to the Editor Re: Langston – Clinical Editor’s Corner

Re: Langston – Clinical Editor’s Corner

The Clinical Editor’s Corner in this issue of Cath Lab Digest highlights two important themes. First, it speaks to the importance of accurate, reproducible pressure gradient measurement as a pivotal input to the decisions that cardiologists make daily. Second, it illustrates well the long tradition of ingenuity that defines the specialty; ingenuity that often requires interventionalists to find solutions when an optimized device has yet to be invented, or perhaps becomes temporarily unavailable.

As a company, we at Teleflex fully recognized that a voluntary recall of the Langston^® dual lumen catheters would make them unavailable to our customers, likely for months. We knew this would bring not only procedural inconvenience, but also the potential for reduced diagnostic confidence. And yet our decision to carry out a swift recall was not in question. While there have been no reports of patient injury, as alluded to in the Editor’s Corner, the potential clearly existed. Teleflex’s commitment to quality is deep rooted for a good reason — quality’s close companion is patient safety.

The interventional cardiology community should be assured that solving the issue that led to the temporary recall is a high priority for our organization. It is our goal to have Langston catheters back in cardiologists’ hands later this year. The understanding of the interventional community as we work diligently to achieve this target is both recognized and appreciated by all of us at Teleflex.