Brachytherapy’s history in medicine dates back to the early 1900s – shortly after the discovery of radioactivity itself. The term refers to the placement of small radioactive sources inside or near cancerous tumors in order to shrink or impede their development.
Over the decades other forms of radiation therapy like external beam radiation gained prominence over the technique, due to issues controlling side effects and radiation exposure. But the age-old therapy has seen a recent resurgence with new technologies and materials meant to make the procedure safer and more effective.
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One of the leaders in this charge has been Tempe, Arizona-based GT Medical Technologies, which has developed the GammaTile, a surgically targeted brachytherapy technology for the treatment of recurrent brain tumors.
The company has raised around $13 million in financing, including a recent $10 million Series A by MedTech Venture Partners meant to support commercialization of the product in the wake of its FDA clearance last year.
“This is not your father’s brachytherapy, which has had issues with necrosis or uneven distribution of radiation,” said GT Medical Technologies CEO Matthew Likens. “Our technology is focused on taking care of all the shortfalls of previous approaches by developing the right carrier for the radioactive seeds.”
The GammaTile is an collagen-based implant embedded with radioactive Cesium seeds that is meant to be be placed directly in the brain at the end of a brain tumor removal surgery to provide targeted radiation therapy to prevent regrowth or recurrence.
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Around 400,000 American patients are newly diagnosed with brain tumors annually and around half of patients who receive treatment for their tumors see their condition reoccur.
Brain cancers are especially difficult to treat due to the blood-brain barrier, which acts as a protective system for the brain, but also guards against most traditional cancer therapies. Technologies like the GammaTile can place high intensity radiation directly at the source of tumor, bypassing the blood-brain barrier in the process.
The GammaTile is meant to be left in the body and the short half-life of the Cesium-based radioactive material means that a majority of the radioactivity is spent in the first weeks after a procedure.
In the case of most brain cancer patients, a tumor removal may include weeks of radiation therapy after surgery, which can add an additional physical burden along with side effects from radiation exposure outside of the targeted area.
Additional surgeries also increase the risk for infection and damages quality of life for patients.
“In oncology we focus so much on survival that we often forget that treatment itself can be detrimental to a patient’s life,” said Dr. Clark Chen, the head of the department of neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
The University of Minnesota is the first health system to offer the GammaTile therapy. Dr. Chen’s first patient, Linda Tinega, had already undergone two procedures to remove her recurrent glioblastoma before receiving the GammaTile therapy earlier this year.
“I’m not having those side effects like I did with having the usual type of radiation done,” Tinega told KARE 11. “Healthwise it’s not even like they’re in there.”
While he acknowledged the previous issues with brachytherapy in brain cancer, Dr. Chen said the GammaTile’s structure helps make the surgical procedure more uniform. Additionally, advances in cancer treatments like chemotherapy mean that the GammaTile can be used in conjunction with other therapies for better results.
“Radiation is part of a regimen that needs to be used thoughtfully and tailored individually to the patient,” Dr. Chen said. “I don’t want to position GammaTile as a cure, it’s a tool to create the perfect treatment combination for a patient’s specific needs.”
He added that due to the short range of GammaTile’s radioactivity, the technology works best for patients with tumors that reoccur adjacent to previous tumors and without tumors elsewhere.
Likens said GT Medical Technologies has been working on ramping up its manufacturing and distribution capabilities and is currently working on a limited market release to around a dozen top cancer institutions. This will be followed by a wider roll-out across the country later this year.
The company is also working on receiving 510(k) clearance for the use of the GammaTile for initial brain cancer indications to expand the applications of its technology.
“If you look at the clinical data for today’s standard of care it makes one wonder why anybody would go through the existing therapy when you have the option of a five minute extension to your surgery that leads to 100 percent compliance,” Likens said.
“Our audacious goal is to create a new standard of care with an elegantly simple approach to really significant issues.”
Picture: goglik83, Getty Images
