Registry-based prospective, active surveillance of medical-device safety

BACKGROUND The process of assuring the safety of medical devices is constrained by reliance on voluntary reporting of adverse events. We evaluated a strategy of prospective, active surveillance of a national clinical registry to monitor the safety of an implantable vascular-closure device that had a suspected association with increased adverse events after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS We used an integrated clinical-data surveillance system to conduct a prospective, propensity-matched analysis of the safety of the Mynx vascular-closure device, as compared with alternative approved vascular-closure devices, with data from the CathPCI Registry of the National Cardiovascular Data Registry. The primary outcome was any vascular complication, which was a composite of access-site bleeding, access- site hematoma, retroperitoneal bleeding, or any vascular complication requiring intervention. Secondary safety end points were access-site bleeding requiring treatment and postprocedural blood transfusion. RESULTS We analyzed data from 73,124 patients who had received Mynx devices after PCI procedures with femoral access from January 1, 2011, to September 30, 2013. The Mynx device was associated with a significantly greater risk of any vascular complication than were alternative vascular-closure devices (absolute risk, 1.2% vs. 0.8%; relative risk, 1.59; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.42 to 1.78; P<0.001); there was also a significantly greater risk of access-site bleeding (absolute risk, 0.4% vs. 0.3%; relative risk, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.10 to 1.62; P = 0.001) and transfusion (absolute risk, 1.8% vs. 1.5%; relative risk, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.34; P<0.001). The initial alerts occurred within the first 12 months of monitoring. Relative risks were greater in three prespecified high-risk subgroups: patients with diabetes, those 70 years of age or older, and women. All safety alerts were confirmed in an independent sample of 48,992 patients from April 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015. CONCLUSIONS A strategy of prospective, active surveillance of a clinical registry rapidly identified potential safety signals among recipients of an implantable vascular-closure device, with initial alerts occurring within the first 12 months of monitoring.