Endocare says cryoablation an effective technique for renal, lung, liver tumors

By Elaine Rigoli

Tampa, Fla., March 31 - Endocare, Inc. said its cryoablation technology, when properly administered, is an effective ablative technique for renal, lung and liver tumors, as long as protocols are tailored to the patient and tumor and patient selection guidelines are optimized.

Endocare also said that recent animal studies suggest that although cryoablation physically treats only the specific tumor site targeted, in combination with immunotherapy agents, the immune effect may be able to treat systemic metastases throughout the body.

In the first of three recent studies, Endocare investigated whether the preservation of tumor antigens in the cryoablation treatment site leads to a systemic immune response that may treat remote tumors, according to a news release.

The study found that mice whose tumors were treated with cryoablation showed a survival advantage compared to mice treated with surgery.

Endocare said these early results suggest a systemic immune effect may occur on tumor metastases following cryoablation and warrant further study of the observed anti-tumor effects.

The second study evaluated the factors that influence the initial success rate and complication rate of percutaneous computed tomography-guided cryoablation of localized renal cell carcinoma tumors.

Twenty-one patients with a total of 23 tumors were treated with percutaneous computed tomography-guided cryoablation under conscious sedation on an outpatient basis.

This technique proved to be successful for guiding probe placement and monitoring ice-ball formation, and results determined that tumor location and size were the major determinants for achieving tumor eradication, the company said.

The third study questioned how close two overlapping ablation probes need to be to treat tumors larger than a single probe ablation treatment zone. The study also investigated whether synergistic effects of simultaneously ablating multiple probes make multiple probes better than serial single ablations and if thermal maps in different tissues are the same.

The study concluded that appropriate spacing between two CryoProbes is necessary to create successful overlapping ablations and different protocols should be employed when treating different tissues, according to the release.

Based in Irvine, Calif., Endocare is a medical device company focused on the development of minimally invasive technologies for tissue and tumor ablation.

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