UC Denver and UCLA First to Receive Revolutionary Prostate Biopsy Systems
Monday April 06, 2009
As leaders in the advancement of the detection and treatment of prostate cancer, the University of Health Sciences Center at Denver and the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA are the first medical facilities to initialize use of ei•Nav/Artemis™, the innovative image guidance and navigation system for prostate biopsy. Using proprietary next-generation imaging technology, Artemis provides solutions not available today by enhancing urologists’ existing ultrasound machines, the vast majority of which are only 2D. Now, Artemis allows urologists to virtually see inside the prostate in real-time during biopsy, guides them with real-time needle navigation during the delicate procedure, maps biopsy locations and generates an image of 3D biopsy coordinates for future reference.
“We are very interested in the potential of the Artemis device,” said Leonard S. Marks, MD, Professor of Urology, Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA. “No major advances have been made in TRUS/Biopsy technique over the past 20 years, except for use of local anesthesia and a 12-core approach. This device will hopefully take us to a more sophisticated level, especially for men electing Active Surveillance and possibly in the future, focal therapy.”
Artemis allows doctors to select a tissue site within the boundary of the prostate with pinpoint accuracy, and then provides needle navigation to the precise location for biopsy.
Artemis’ patented registration technology records this information in 3D, which allows doctors to revisit or avoid the exact same area during repeat procedures. Artemis provides doctors with data they can analyze to determine changes in the prostate gland and manage treatment accordingly.
“With an estimated 1.5 million biopsies performed each year, conventional biopsy is blind to cancer, as 20 to 30 percent of cancers are missed, and detected cancer may not be clinically relevant,” said Al Barqawi, Director of Research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the first recipient of Artemis in Colorado. “The benefits of advancements in imaging will improve our ability to accurately guide tissue sampling, improve diagnosis and manage the disease progression. We will be able to treat patients to what they have, not what we think they have.”
This breakthrough imaging and mapping is a major improvement over existing 2D ultrasound routinely used for prostate cancer biopsies, where doctors blindly biopsy cells and roughly estimate locations during repeat procedures. Without being able to clearly see the prostate in real-time, doctors have had no choice but to gather less-than-precise information to determine treatment.
Eigen, Inc., developer of Artemis, has been testing the system in clinical environments since its release last year with University of Denver Health Sciences Center, UC San Francisco and Sierra Nevada Urology.