April 24, 2008 - AngioDynamics reported that the first human clinical use employing irreversible electroporation (IRE) to ablate soft tissue was completely successful based on analysis of biopsies performed on five patients two weeks after their treatment.
The IRE treatment was conducted during the first week of April as part of a pilot trial focused on determining the success of treating soft tissue with IRE. Biopsies taken from the treated patients' prostates were normal and the patients had no side effects. The trial is expected to continue to develop clinical data on the technology's therapeutic effectiveness.
IRE is a non-thermal tissue ablation technique in which electrical fields are used to create nano-scale defects in a cell's membrane, which causes cell death only in the targeted tissue, without destroying critical structures such as ducts, blood vessels and nerves. A research team headed by Boris Rubinsky, professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, invented the IRE technology used in this trial. The technology is exclusively licensed by the University of California to Oncobionic Inc. for commercial development.
In October 2006, AngioDynamics announced that it had reached an agreement with Oncobionic to acquire the company, and that the acquisition would be completed upon the first four consecutive cases of successful treatment of soft tissue in humans. In November 2006, the FDA cleared the IRE technology for human use for the indication of soft tissue ablation.
For more information: www.angiodynamics.com
October 30, 2026 
