MEDICAL : San Clemente-Based Catheter Maker Expands Staff, Moves Headquarters

In response to a surge in sales, Advanced Surgical Intervention, a San Clemente maker of a catheter to treat prostate problems without surgery, is expanding its staff and building a new corporate headquarters.

The small company has expanded its work force to 75 employees from 30 since the start of the year. And it expects to employ 150 to 200 workers by the end of 1990, said Bob Rosenbluth, the company’s president and chief executive.

He said the company in February would move into a 38,000-square-foot facility, leaving behind its current quarters, which are less than half as large.

Rosenbluth, who was director of research and development for Shiley Inc. in Irvine before founding ASI in 1986, said that the company’s sales have “taken off” since the beginning of 1989 and that so far more than 2,000 patients have been treated with the company’s balloon catheter. The privately held company would not release exact sales figures.

ASI’s catheter is used to treat male urinary problems caused by the enlargement of the prostate gland. As men age, Rosenbluth said, the urinary passage often is squeezed partly or completely shut by an enlarged prostate. The instrument is inserted in a man’s urinary passage and expanded to widen the opening and allow easier urination.

Rosenbluth said the catheter developed by the company provides an alternative to surgical removal of all or part of the prostate. He said about 400,000 such surgical procedures are done each year.

“It is the most common inpatient Medicare-reimbursed surgical procedure,” he said.

Not only is the catheter procedure less severe than surgery, Rosenbluth said, but it is less expensive, costing about $3,000 compared to about $9,000 for surgery and associated hospitalization.