The FDA has announced that it has granted Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) approval to Calypso Medical Technologies for a clinical study that will evaluate real-time tracking of lung cancer tumors during radiation treatment using Calypso's proprietary tracking technology.
Patients are first implanted with so-called anchored Beacon transponders in the lungs and the Calypso System is then employed to track tumor location and movement during treatment. The ideal end result is that, in early-stage lung cancers, doctors can more broadly utilize radiation therapy in the curative setting because they can train the radiation more precisely, and it may allow them to escalate the radiation dose as well, all the while limiting damage to the surrounding tissue.
The Beacon transponders give doctors highly precise and real-time information about the exact location and movement of the tumor within the lung—information far more precise than what current stereotactic techniques can offer.
Enrollment in the FDA's approved clinical trial will be at Washington University in St. Louis as well as the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (Tulsa location only).
Source: Marketwire
