Cardiologists Critique Consumer TV Advertising For Interventional Devices

Why are cardiologists arguing that direct-to-consumer television advertising of surgical devices raises more troubling questions than do many prominent pharmaceutical DTC ads? [Preview]

This article preview is reprinted from "The Gray Sheet" - May 19, 2008

Direct-to-consumer television advertising of surgical devices raises more troubling questions than do many prominent pharmaceutical DTC ads, two cardiologists argue in an article posted on the New England Journal of Medicine Web site last week.

In the "perspective" piece, William E. Boden, University at Buffalo School of Medicine, and George A. Diamond, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, single out Johnson & Johnson/Cordis' "Life Wide Open" TV ad campaignfor the Cypher drug-eluting stent.

The ad, which debuted during a Thanksgiving Day professional football game after an informal review by FDA, is intended both to educate patients generally about coronary artery disease treatments and to spread the Cypher brand, according to Cordis.

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