10 Cancer Centers to Use Cryo Procedure
Irvine-based Endocare Inc. will announce today that 10 of the nation’s leading cancer centers, including two in California, have signed up to use its groundbreaking treatment for prostate cancer. The announcement signals growing acceptance and accessibility for cryosurgery--a less invasive process that uses extreme cold to kill cancer cells without removing them from the body--to fight prostate disease, said Endocare Chief Executive Paul Mikus. Endocare’s treatment is called targeted cryoablation.
About 180,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and 37,000 die from it. Cryosurgery is virtually painless, and patients recover from it in about a week, compared with six weeks after conventional surgery, said Dr. Stuart Fisher of UCLA’s urology department. Fisher said he had used Endocare’s procedure about 30 times in the last three years, achieving results equal to those of other treatment methods. Endocare’s procedure cleared a major hurdle in July when it became reimbursable by Medicare.
Endocare said it has installed the $190,000 piece of equipment needed for the procedure at nine well-known cancer treatment facilities: UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Stanford University Medical Center, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Michigan Medical Center, Emory University Hospital, Detroit Medical Center’s Harper Hospital and Tampa’s H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. The 10th center will be identified within the week, company executives said.
Endocare lost $2.5 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30 but reported revenue of $1 million, a 91% increase over the same period in 1998. Its stock price reached a high of $8.25 in early September and closed Friday at $7.75, up 25 cents, on the Nasdaq Small-Cap Market.
