Shanghai, China – 9 February, 2015 – MicroPort Endovascular (Shanghai) Co ("MicroPort Endovascular") recently released the six-month follow-up data of its in-house developed Castor™ Branched Aortic Stent Graft System ("Castor™") on Vascular News, an important source for news, views, comment and controversy in the vascular industry.

Six-month data of the Castor trial from 73 patients demonstrate safety and efficacy of the branched aortic stent graft system for the treatment of thoracic dissections. Conducted at 11 centers in China, the trial met its primary efficacy endpoint by achieving 98.6% technical success with two occlusions of the left subclavian artery for operational reasons. No further branch artery occlusions were observed during six-month follow-up. The six-month stroke rate is 2/70, which was not device related. There are two device-related severe adverse events, including one endoleaks and one reintervention due to distal development of the dissection.

Castor™ is the world's first branched stent graft system designed for an entirely endovascular treatment of thoracic dissection encroaching the left subclavian artery or the original tear located within 15mm distal to the left subclavian artery. Castor™ employs an easy-to-use unibody design, including a main body and a left subclavian branch graft to avoid type III endoleaks.

The clinical trial of Castor™ stent-graft system is the world's first prospective, randomized, multi-center clinical study. In August 2014, Castor™ was listed in Shanghai Biomedical Industrialization Project 2014. In November 2014, it was selected as one project of the National Key Technology R&D Program for China's 12th Five-Year Plan.