Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Tim Lee from Piper Jaffray.
Tim Lee - Piper Jaffray
I have a couple of big picture questions. In terms of the overall market trends in the intraoperative cardiac ablation market what type of trends are you seeing? It seems to me like the overall market has slowed here a little bit and I just want to get your perspective.
David Drachman
Sure. We do think that there has been a slight plateau to the market, which is not unusual; however, we also believe that based on the expansion of our minimally invasive platform and new and exciting procedures and technologies that there will be an acceleration of growth both in the open-heart and the minimally invasive markets.
Tim Lee - Piper Jaffray
Then in terms of the timing when do you anticipate that growth in the market? Does it occur at a mid 2010 type event, or do you expect a couple more quarters here of overall modest market growth?
David Drachman
I think the acceleration of growth in your timeframe is a reasonable way to look at it, sort of the mid 2010 and moving forward. We anticipate growth in both the open-heart and minimally invasive markets. In fact, the Cardiovascular Roundtable predicts that the open-heart number of procedures will actually double over the next five years. So I think, again, it is not unusual for a plateau in emerging growth markets, but with the expansion of minimally invasive procedures, new technologies, and solid reimbursement we would anticipate that growth will reaccelerate over the next year and going forward.
Tim Lee - Piper Jaffray
On the ABLATE trial, one, when do you expect to present those results in a scientific forum, and two, just in terms of the number of patients given a lot of atrial fibrillation studies have a much, much larger number of patients and from a statistical standpoint 55 may be the right number, but from a marketing standpoint trying to convince a physician that hey this is labeled and this is how it is going to work, is that really enough to get some of the referring physicians to say that this is the right therapy for my patient?
David Drachman
Well certainly in terms of the 55 patients we did follow our FDA approved plan and the study called for 50 to 100 patients; so at 55 patients the interim analysis is highly predictive of a successful clinical trial and the statistical plan basically calls for cessation of enrollment when you meet the decision making rules, so, we are following our protocol.
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