Pathfinder announces image guidance installations at UPMC and NIH
October 18, 2011
Pathfinder is pleased to announce that it has finalized the acquisition of its image guided surgery platform to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Clinical use of the image guidance, led by David Geller, M.D., Director of the UPMC Liver Cancer Center, comes after the completion of an extensive clinical study of the image guidance technology. Dr. Geller’s clinical interests center on the evaluation and management of patients with liver cancers, and he is a pioneer in laparoscopic liver resection and ablation techniques. UPMC plans to utilize Scout, an image analysis software package, for preoperative liver volumetrics and 3D visualization of the liver and relevant anatomical structures, which aid in the surgical planning process. Explorer, the image guidance system, will be used to confirm the preoperative plan and thus minimize removal of healthy tissue while ensuring elimination of targeted cancerous tissue in open liver resection and ablation procedures.
In addition, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has acquired the Pathfinder Scout software and Explorer navigation system for use in open liver resection and ablation procedures. Brad Wood, M.D. and Itzhak Avital, M.D. will be the primary physicians utilizing the technology. Dr. Wood is the Director of the Center for Interventional Oncology, Chief of Interventional Radiology, and a Senior Investigator with Tenure at NIH. He was the first physician to perform radiofrequency ablation mono-therapy for kidney tumors in humans in the mid-1990’s and the first to guide ablation with GPS-enabled devices. Dr. Avital heads the GI and Hepatobiliary Malignancies section in the Department of Surgery and has completed two fellowships in Surgical Oncology and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The two organizations are working together to expand the use of image-guided technologies for additional abdominal interventions.
About Pathfinder
Pathfinder Therapeutics, Inc. is a medical device company dedicated to increasing the number and effectiveness of surgeries on abdominal and other soft tissue organs. Pathfinder improves surgical precision by allowing surgeons to “see through” the organ they are operating on by registering the surgical instrument in three-dimensional space onto pre-operative patient medical images. Pathfinder is the first company to receive FDA clearance for a medical device to navigate liver surgery using preoperative medical images. The Explorer system uses state-of-the-art line of sight localization and laser range scanning surface registration techniques to show surgeons where they are in the context of their target organ and underlying structures. In addition to Explorer, Pathfinder sells Scout, a software system for liver surgery planning. The Company is also developing an embodiment of Explorer to be used in minimally invasive surgical interventions in the liver. Beyond the liver, Pathfinder is developing guidance systems for the kidney, pancreas, and other organs. For more information, visit www.pathsurg.com.