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Largest Audit of the CardioQ™ in "Fast-Track" Bowel Surgery Set to Expand

14 April 2008 Deltex Medical Group plc ("Deltex Medical"), the UK's leading haemodynamic monitoring company, today announces that doctors in Spain undertaking the largest ever audit of the impact of the Company's CardioQ™ oesophageal Doppler monitor (ODM) are expanding the number of hospitals involved in the project.

Dr José Manuel Ramirez, one of Spain's most senior surgeons and a specialist in bowel surgery at the University Hospital in Zaragoza, is leading the audit which will examine changes in the numbers of complications and lengths of stay in patients undergoing major bowel surgery using the CardioQ™ in a "fast-track" surgery setting compared to historical data for patients undergoing similar surgery using traditional approaches to care.

"Fast-track" or "enhanced recovery" protocols combine elements of best practice in surgical techniques and patient care to keep patients as well as possible immediately before, during and after their surgery.

Originally planned to be conducted across seven hospitals in Spain, interest in this independent project, organised and supervised by the University of Zaragoza has been such that Dr Ramirez felt it appropriate to expand this to include a further four hospitals, although many more expressed strong interest in being involved.

Deltex Medical has been working closely with Dr Ramirez and his colleagues and training at the first group of hospitals is now complete. The new sites will be trained over the coming weeks. Data collection will begin on 1 May 2008 and is expected to conclude at the end of October, in time for presentation of the results at the Spanish National Congress of Surgery in Madrid in November 2008.

Dr Ramirez commented:

"Surgeons have added strategies during surgery designed to enhance patients' recovery still further. They use minimally invasive surgical techniques and epidural anaesthesia wherever possible and precise cardiac and fluid monitoring during operations through an oesophageal Doppler probe used with CardioQ™, which monitors blood flow from the heart. In elective complex surgical procedures these approaches have been shown in trials to lead to a lower rate of postoperative complications and shorten time to recovery and hospital stay, our objective is to promote and press forward with these programmes in the field of general and digestive surgery."

The Spanish Agencia Laín Entralgo para la Formación, Investigación y Estudios Sanitarios de la Comunidad de Madrid, Spain's equivalent to the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), is closely involved in the audit project and its remit includes making recommendations on a national basis about which new technologies should become integrated as routine practice in the Spanish health service.

Mr. Juan Antonio Blasco Amaro, who is responsible for medical device evaluation at the Agencia Laín Entralgo para la Formación, Investigación y Estudios Sanitarios de la Comunidad de Madrid commented:

"The outcome of this study could make the CardioQ™ a specification and preferable device of use included in the social security health program."

Deltex Medical's Chief Executive, Andy Hill commented:

"Fast-track and enhanced recovery programmes are gaining ground as the standard of care for patients having bowel and other major surgical procedures. Dr Ramirez's project has the very real potential to accelerate substantially the adoption of this approach across more than 200 hospitals in Spain performing this kind of surgery."