Articles
8 February 2012

Freshmedx Announces Breakthrough Lung Cancer Diagnostic

by PR or News Wire

08 February 2012—

In celebration of World Cancer Day and the Year of the Lung, Utah-based Freshmedx has entered into multiple discussions for the international license of its Bioconductance Scanning Platform (BSP).  The BSP is a medical device that can dramatically improve the accuracy of pre-surgical lung cancer diagnosis in a simple and painless 12-minute scan.  Freshmedx is pursuing regulatory approvals in the US and has completed CE mark testing for European distribution.

 

Cancer is projected to become the leading cause of death in 2010 according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.  Of all cancers, lung cancer is by far the most deadly.  It results in more deaths than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers combined,

yet it receives only one tenth the per-patient resources of other cancers.

 

Freshmedx's innovation could not have come at a better time.  2010 has been designated the Year of the Lung to draw worldwide attention to much needed lung research. Surgical biopsy of the lung is expensive and life-threatening.  Current imaging technology may falsely suggest the need for surgical biopsy of the lung in up to 94 percent of cases.  The National Institute of Health (NIH) has estimated that over half of the US lung cancer related surgeries are unnecessary.

 

"Even the best technologies currently used are not enough," said Steve Eror, Freshmedx chief executive officer.  "They are frequently unable to discriminate masses that are not life-threatening from those which merit immediate surgical biopsy and treatment.  As a result, many lives are put on the line with unnecessary surgical biopsies of the lung.  Freshmedx offers a new technology that can prevent unnecessary surgery, treatment and emotional distress."

 

The BSP device captures and evaluates precise transthoracic

bioconductance measurements with a patented technology that are validated and reported to the physician for review in the form of a composite score. Freshmedx recently received its fifth patent for the BSP and has completed clinical trials in Salt Lake City, and in cancer centers in Chicago and Baltimore.  Results were presented at the most recent conference of the American Thoracic Society with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

 

Freshmedx estimates that, in the US alone, unnecessary procedures waste direct healthcare costs of $8.1 billion per year and result in more than 3,250 deaths even before consideration of other complications such as punctured lung and pulmonary infection.

 

"This technology is being announced at a time when we are all looking for more accurate, better and cost-effective ways of detecting disease, particularly such a life-threatening cancer," said Eror.


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