Project description
Real-time monitoring during the ablation procedure
Ablation therapy is a minimally invasive procedure used to destroy abnormal tissue in many conditions, including for cancer tumour removal, and it could be the best alternative to surgery. However, its application is still limited due to high unpredictability in relation to the extent of the lesion during the intervention. Techsomed medical technologies is developing a device for monitoring in real time the extent of the lesion during the ablation procedure and to predict the outcome 24 hours post-treatment. Tracking the tissue's biological response to the heat using an AI-based algorithm will enable monitoring during ablation to alert medical personnel when damage is observed outside the surgical margin. The EU-funded BioTrace project will support the feasibility study to assess the technical, commercial and financial parameters of the project.
Objective
Cancer treatment resection or surgery is currently the gold standard to remove tumours, but it is risky for patients and a costly process (average cost of €28.000 per surgery). Ablation is a minimally invasive technique and the best alternative to surgery (€1,300). However, its use is still limited to treat patients with smaller tumours or patients unfit for surgery, due to its high unpredictability, as there is currently no way of knowing the extent of the lesion during and after the intervention (cells continue dying for up to 24 hours after the intervention due to thermal effects). Thus, undertreatment or over treatment frequently occur, the latest leading to up to 40% recurrence. Our solution, BioTrace, is the only device able to monitor in real-time the extent of the lesion during the ablation procedure and predicts its outcome 24 hours post-treatment. It works by keeping track of the tissue's biological response to the heat using AI-based algorithms. With BioTrace physicians are alerted when damage is observed outside the surgical margin, which enables them to determine its progression 24 hours after the procedure (as proven in a clinical study conducted with 54 standard TA procedures in University of Tokyo Hospital (UTH)). BioTrace will be a game-changer in the ablation technology industry by improving success rates and reducing costs for the healthcare system. Its market opportunity is large since it can be applied not only in the interventional oncology area, but in other areas, such as electrophysiology (for treating cardiac arrhythmias) and neurotomy (for pain management). We foresee that we will need €3 million to complete phase 2 and reach the liver market as a standalone system. Considering a growth of the global ablation market of 35% (2017-2023), in the fifth year of sales we estimate to reach revenues of 10.8M and a ROI of 0.38. During the feasibility study we will further assess the technical, commercial and financial viability of our project.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
7632605 REHOVOT
Israel
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.