With liver cancer currently accounting for 2 million new cases a year, globally, conventional solid tumours have been treated by surgical resection, systemic chemotherapy and/or local radiation therapy. However, in the past decade, there has been a trend towards the use of energy based ablation techniques with RF the most commonly used as a minimally invasive alternative to surgery.
Innovation
BETA is a new approach to tissue ablation that applies two kinds of electrical energy (Direct Current (DC) and Alternating Current (AC), the latter used for RF ablation) to achieve an ablation zone that is up to twice the diameter than that achieved with current state-of-the-art technology. BETA's DC component induces electroendosmosis which keeps the tumour hydrated during the ablation process which enables an increased volume of tissue to be destroyed by RF. This innovation could decrease the liver tumour recurrence rate of 30% currently experienced worldwide.
This new technology could ultimately be integrated into existing medical products which generate RF ablative energy. This technology could also be coupled with currently available needle arrays which are inserted directly into tumour tissue to channel ablative energy in order to denature and destroy cancerous cells.
Key Advantages
- Increase laparoscopic ablation procedures and hence speed patient recovery time and reduce cost to health care providers.
- Treat a greater range of tumours with ablation (larger and previously inoperable tumours).
- BETA can be combined with the array of existing commercial needle electrodes and also existing ablation energy generators.
Market Size
Clinical development is presently focussed on liver ablation, though BETA has utility and potential in other therapy areas such as lung, kidney and bone tumours, as well as uterine fibroids. The RF ablation market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18% until 2017 where the global annual RF market is predicted to be $11,947 billion. RF ablation is the prevalent method of tumour ablation used by the majority of interventional radiologists (96% of respondents in our survey). Furthermore, over 70% of radiologists surveyed stated they would be interested in using BETA.
Contact
This technology has patents pending in multiple worldwide territories. We are seeking a commercial partner for this technology.
For further information please contact Stuart Thomson on tel: +44 (0)1480 364925 or e-mail:
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