UPDATE 2-Edwards profit beats forecast, shares rise

* Q2 EPS, excluding items, $0.46/shr vs $0.44/shr forecast

* Discontinues MONARC program

* Edwards shares rise 4.5 pct after hours (Adds details on sales, revenue and profit forecasts)

CHICAGO, July 21 (Reuters) - Edwards Lifesciences Corp (EW.N) reported higher second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, boosted by strong sales of its so-called transcatheter heart valve, recently launched in Europe.

The company, whose shares rose 4.5 percent in after-hours trading, said its net earnings were $57.5 million, or 48 cents per diluted share. That compared with $47.5 million, or 41 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding a tax benefit and the writedown of assets related to the company's MONARC transcatheter mitral valve program, Edwards earned 46 cents per share. Analysts, on average, had expected 44 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Edwards, the world's largest maker of heart valves, said it decided to discontinue its MONARC transcatheter mitral valve program due to slow enrollment in the EVOLUTION II trial. It recorded a pretax charge of $8.3 million in the quarter, resulting primarily from the writedown of assets related to the MONARC program.

Quarterly sales increased 8.9 percent to $365.2 million, excluding the impact of foreign exchange translations, costs for discontinued products and other items.

Based on strong European demand for the transcatheter valve called Sapien XT, Edwards raised its outlook for the class of valves to between $190 million and $205 million for the full year.

The company reaffirmed it expects 2010 sales to be at the bottom of its forecast of $1.43 billion to $1.50 billion, but raised its estimated underlying sales growth rate to between 12 and 14 percent.

For the full year, excluding special items, Edwards increased its diluted earnings per share forecast by 2 cents to $1.78 to $1.82.

For the third quarter, it pegged diluted earnings per share between 40 cents and 42 cents.

Edwards shares were trading after-hours at $56 from their closing price of $53.55 on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Debra Sherman and Ransdell Pierson; editing by Andre Grenon)