The prostate gland is a part of the male reproductive system that makes seminal fluid. It is also the site of one of the most common cancers, which may metastasize. Unfortunately, the only currently approved treatments for prostate cancer involve invasive surgical removal, radiation, chemotherapy, or ablation (which causes the prostate tissue to die through applying cold gas or ultrasound heat), all of which put the patient at risk of sexual, urinary or bowel dysfunction. This is why doctors usually advise patients to wait till the tumor starts to show symptoms so that they can delay these treatments till it becomes absolutely necessary – a process called active surveillance.
The lack of solid advancement towards prostate cancer treatment has led to the formation of a company called Avenda Health. Supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, Avenda Health solely focuses on treating prostate cancer.
Their treatment uses laser ablation to remove the affected part of the prostate while preserving surrounding structures. Physicians can perform it under local anesthesia and can follow it up by other treatment options if necessary.
Moreover, the company has come up with a way to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make the ablation highly accurate. They did this by collecting cancer imaging and pathological information from many urologists and compiling them into a database for the AI. Information from this database will then be combined with the patient’s clinical history to create a probability map. This becomes a guide for the physician to locate the ablation site while preserving vital structures.
Clinical Trials
Having received an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation, Avenda Health is now planning to go ahead with clinical trials to determine the treatment’s safety and efficacy. They previously tested the treatment without the AI system at UCLA. Here, they found that MRI imaging was not enough to determine cancer’s margins. Due to this, the tumor could not be completely removed in many patients. This major drawback is the reason that the company has now developed the AI database system. تعليم لعبة البوكر
However, while the UCLA trial demonstrated the flaws of the MRI, it also proved that laser ablation was the future. Patients with a clear biopsy after 12 months of treatment did not develop the tumor again in the 5-year follow-up.
According to the company, the FDA Breakthrough Designation means that once they complete the trials, the FDA will grant them priority review. كيف تلعب لعبة البوكر This will help Avenda Health quickly bring its treatment to the market for commercial use. ويليام هيل
Source: Medgadget
https://www.medgadget.com/2021/06/localized-prostate-cancer-therapy-interview-with-shyam-natarajan-ceo-of-avenda-health.html
