The first US multicenter, prospective clinical trial to investigate the use of minimally invasive stent placement for severe peripheral arterial disease (PAD) below the knee, also known as Critical Limb Ischemia (CLI), the XCELL trial, recently enrolled its 120th and final patient. Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein enrolled the final patient at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield. The study is sponsored by VIVA Physicians, Inc (VPI) and is supported by a research grant from Abbott. The study evaluates Abbott Vascular’s Xpert nitinol stent in the arterial vessels below the knee. VIVA Physicians, Inc developed the protocol to study the stent’s usage in the tibial arteries below the knee and submitted the protocol application to the FDA for IDE approval and contracted with Prairie Education and Research Cooperative to assist with their study results data collection, evaluation, and reporting. According to Dr. James Joye, D.O., the National Principal Investigator for the XCELL trial, "This trial is important because it is sponsored by a group of independent physicians who saw a need to evaluate a technology that might improve outcomes in patients with CLI, and who recognized that there are significant gaps in our medical knowledge of how to best treat such patients. Those with advanced disease may be poor candidates for surgery and have few treatment options, and many are at high risk of losing a limb,” Dr. Joye said. “The study’s primary endpoint is avoidance of major amputation at 12-months follow-up after treatment, and with enrollment being completed, we are one step closer to evaluating the outcomes for this patient population.” The study was conducted at 16 centers in the United States. In addition to St. John’s Hospital (principal investigator- Nilesh Goswami, M.D.), other centers who participated in the study, and their principal investigators, included: • El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, CA; Jim Joye, D.O. • Community Hospital, Munster, IN; Satyaprakash. Makam, M.D. • St. Joseph Hospital, Orange, CA; Mahmood Razavi, M.D. • Midwest Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Davenport, IA; Eric Dippel, M.D. • Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus, OH; Charles Botti, M.D. • Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, Dallas, TX; Tony Das, M.D. • North Central Heart Institute, Sioux Falls, SD; J. Michael Bacharach, M.D.