RF ablation has been used for several years to treat liver and kidney cancer. The Mayo Clinic study shows that RF ablation can be equally effective in killing cancer cells that cause pain in the bone.
In addition to Mayo Clinic, the study was conducted at nine other medical centers in the United States, Italy, Germany and France. RITA Medical Systems, Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., developed the RF ablation technology that was used in the study and also provided partial funding for the research effort.
Who: The Mayo Clinic team of physicians involved in the recent study on which the FDA based its approval included William Charboneau, M.D., and Matthew Callstrom, M.D., Ph.D., radiologists; and Joseph Rubin, M.D., and Matthew Goetz, M.D., medical oncologists.
Patients: Interviews available with patients in Kansas City, Mo., Denver, Colo., and Billings, Mont.
Videotape: B-roll about the procedure and sound bites from physicians and a patient are available upon request.
Background: The Mayo Clinic study about RF ablation was presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and published in a recent issue of the journal Radiology. The study showed that 95 percent of the 43 patients with incurable cancer who were treated with the RF ablation procedure experienced significant pain relief and had improved quality of life.
All of the study participants had previous
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Contact: Mary Lawson and John Murphy
newsbureau@mayo.edu
507-284-5005
Mayo Clinic
21-Oct-2002