December 5, 2008 - Endocare Inc., a medical device company focused on the development of minimally invasive technologies used by urologists and interventional radiologists for tissue and tumor ablation, said that physicians from leading medical institutions including Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, among others, presented a total of 38 scientific papers, posters and educational exhibits related to cryoablation and its effectiveness for treating a wide variety of cancers at RSNA 2008.
Cryoablation is a minimally invasive procedure in which tumors are targeted with ultrasound, CT or MRI guidance and treated by freezing.
The presentations include a 36-month update of a multi-center study that demonstrates the safety, effectiveness and durability of cryoablation as a means of dramatically reducing focal pain for patients whose cancer has spread to their bones. The update on the study, which includes data from 50 of a planned total of 60 patients, is being presented by Matthew Callstrom, M.D., Ph.D. of Mayo Clinic, the lead investigator.
The conference also included several presentations focused on percutaneous renal, or kidney, cryoablation, the fastest growing cryoablation treatment.
Last January the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued for the first time a payment code for percutaneous renal cryoablation, a procedure that allows physicians to destroy small tumors in the kidney by inserting a probe directly through the skin and freezing the cancerous tissue.
Data were also presented on the effectiveness of cryoablation for treating liver, lung and brain cancers, as well as an immunologic response that occurs in high risk prostate cancer patients treated with cryoablation.
For more information: www.endocare.com