• Biopharmaceutical company Celsion (Columbia, MD) has signed a research agreement with Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands to develop a cancer treatment based on Philips' ultrasound technology and Celsion's drug-delivery system. The plan is to combine Philips' investigational MR-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) system with Celsion's ThermoDox - a heat-sensitive liposomal encapsulation of the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin. HIFU will be used to position the doxorubicin and create a mild hyperthermia (40-42°C) that releases it from the liposome and directly into the tumour.
The joint venture will test two hypotheses. First, that ThermoDox can eliminate cancer cells that may otherwise remain viable, by using HIFU to help release the drug within and around the margins of the heated area. Second, that using HIFU in the low-temperature activation mode with ThermoDox has the potential to deliver high concentrations of chemotherapeutics to multiple sites at virtually any location in the body.
• German optics specialist Carl Zeiss has introduced Primo Star iLED - a fluorescence microscope for fast and reliable detection of tuberculosis (TB). The device is said to combine the benefits of fluorescence microscopy - up to four times faster and 10% more sensitive TB detection than traditional brightfield microscopy - with an inexpensive, rugged format. The fluorescence is excited with an LED, which has a long lifetime and saves energy compared with traditional mercury-lamp excitation. The microscope easily switches between fluorescence and brightfield modes, making it suitable for detecting other infectious diseases, such as malaria.
The Primo Star iLED will be supplied at a "particularly favourable price" to the public-health sectors of the 22 high-TB-burden countries that, according to the World Health Organization, account for 80% of all global TB cases. "We are pleased that our collaboration with Carl Zeiss enables us to provide the fluorescence microscope to low-resource countries at a favourable price," said Giorgio Roscigno, CEO of the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), the Swiss-based co-developers of the microscope.
• SINAPSE - the Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence - was officially launched last week. Dubbed as Europe's first "virtual brain-imaging lab", the collaboration brings together scientists from the universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and St Andrews to research conditions such as strokes, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and cancers. The £40 million initiative is said to be the first project in the world to see separate institutions share state-of-the-art technology, including PET, MRI and CT scanners, to examine the workings of the brain.
• Doctors at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam have used RapidArc technology from Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA) to treat four early-stage lung-cancer patients - claimed to be among the world's first treatments of this kind. The Dutch clinicians plan to eventually replace all conventional stereotactic radiotherapy treatments with RapidArc for such patients.
"We normally use ultra-precise stereotactic radiotherapy in these cases and we have now treated more than 400 such patients in this way," said Ben Slotman, chairman of the hospital's department of radiation oncology. "But RapidArc offers some real time-savings over stereotactic radiotherapy and its use in this case is a real breakthrough for us and our patients."
• Luna Innovations has bagged a National Cancer Institute award to fund the development of an MRI contrast agent for detection and diagnosis of brain tumours. Luna's contrast agent prototype is based on Hydrochalarone, a modification of its TRIMETASPHERE carbon nanospheres. This agent shows the potential to significantly enhance relaxivity, a property that enhances imaging, as well as being extremely stable, water soluble. It also offers the possibility of modifying its clearance rate from the bloodstream to fit specific applications.
Luna's nanoWorks division in Danville, VA, will adapt the nanotechnology-based agent so that the nanomolecules seek out specific biological targets such as a glioblastoma tumour. "Luna's Hydrochalarone technology platform can be modified to produce targeted contrast agents, which selectively highlight the tumour cells,” said Kent Murphy, Luna's chairman and CEO. "Our hope is that our novel approach will provide better resolution to radiologists, who in turn, will improve patient outcomes."
• Given Imaging's PillCam COLON shows substantial agreement with colonoscopy in the detection of active ulcerative colitis, according to results presented at the 16th United European Gastroenterology Week conference, held this week in Vienna, Austria. The interim analysis of 42 patients assessed the accuracy of PillCam COLON capsule endoscopy in detecting inflammatory lesions and ulcerative colitis compared with traditional optical colonoscopy.
The Israeli manufacturer also presented data from two new, large-scale studies that confirmed the value of PillCam SB capsule endoscopy among young children with a range of small intestinal disorders, and in adults with overt obscure gastrointestinal bleeding.
• TomoTherapy (Madison, WI) has signed a letter of intent with Japanese medical equipment supplier Hitachi Medical Corporation to distribute the Hi.Art cancer treatment system in Japan. Terms of the agreement between TomoTherapy and HMC are being finalized, with the partnership expected to commence by the end of this year.
• Philips Research of the Netherlands has successfully concluded a feasibility study of its decision support software for automated dementia diagnosis using PET image data. PET brain scans with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) are currently an effective way to diagnose early-stage dementia, but image interpretation requires a great deal of skill. Working in collaboration with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany and Austin Hospital in Australia, Philips evaluated the software tool retrospectively, using libraries of previously interpreted FDG-PET brain-scan images.
In one study of scans from 83 patients, Philips' software achieved better than 98% correspondence with the expert physician's interpretation of FDG-PET brain scans, when programmed to differentiate between those showing no signs of dementia, those characteristic of Alzheimer's disease and those characteristic of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). In a similar 48-patient study, the software achieved better than 80% accuracy in distinguishing scans of undiseased patients and those suffering from Alzheimer's, FTD and Lewy body dementia.