OTHER NEWS - Nov. 10, 1992

Effort May Be Made to Alter Shiley Settlement: An Irvine lawyer said he may ask a Cincinnati court to take another look at a settlement involving hundreds of recipients of potentially defective heart valves now that researchers have succeeded in using an X-ray technique to identify cracks in the devices. James Capretz, who represents more than 300 heart-valve recipients, also said that the researchers’ data may suggest that the rate of fracture is much greater than previously believed, given that researchers spotted three flaws in the 70 valves examined so far. As part of a class-action settlement in August, Shiley agreed to set aside $75 million for heart-valve research, including the X-ray technique being studied at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. The technique is one of several being developed to determine the likelihood that a valve will fracture.