The first quarter is in the books – and Abbott showed strong results, positioning the company for long-term sustainable and organic growth.

For the quarter, we beat Street estimates on the top and bottom lines, and we expect to continue to deliver top-tier sales and double-digit EPS growth throughout 2018. With today's results, Abbott has met or beaten Street adjusted EPS estimates every quarter for more than 10 years.

The strong growth we delivered this quarter is a direct result of the strategic steps we've taken to position the company in the most attractive areas of healthcare and the productivity of our technologies. In the first quarter:

We continued our leadership in Cardiovascular Devices through our rapidly growing portfolio.

• The launch of our Confirm Rx, the world's first and only insertable cardiac monitor, is off to a great start and contributing to fantastic growth for our electrophysiology business.
• Masters HP 155 rotatable mechanical heart valve, the first heart valve for babies and toddlers, was approved in the U.S., and we received MR-conditional labeling for Fortify Assura ICD and Quadra Assura and Quadra Assura MP CRT-D devices.
• New clinical trial data from the New England Journal of Medicine show HeartMate 3 improved survival and clinical outcomes at two years of patients with advanced heart failure.
• MitraClip, our market-leading device for minimally invasive repair of mitral regurgitation, received national reimbursement in Japan.
• We initiated the GUIDE-HF clinical trial in the U.S., which will evaluate whether treatment with the CardioMEMS monitor improves survival and outcomes for people with mid-to-late stage heart failure.

We continued to revolutionize how people manage their diabetes.

• FreeStyle Libre* now has approximately 650,000 routine users across the globe – an unprecedented level of patient adoption in this industry.
• FreeStyle Libre received CMS reimbursement in the U.S., and the LibreLink app became available for iPhone and Android in Europe.

We continue to personalize and harmonize the lab with our diagnostics technology.

• We launched the Alinity H-Series Integrated Hematology system in Europe, to perform more tests while reducing errors and operating costs.

For full financials, you can read our press release, but major highlights are included in the materials below:

Abbott's Chairman and CEO Miles D. White shared his views on first-quarter performance: