Upstate Medical deploys new technology for prostate-cancer treatment

SYRACUSE — Doctors at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University are using new technology in the battle against prostate cancer.

They’re utilizing a 3-tesla magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) system and the platform, called UroNav, Upstate Medical announced this week.

The technology seeks to fuse together different sources of information to generate a picture of the prostate in real time and create a more specific target area for biopsy, Upstate Medical said in a news release.

Upstate Medical in October purchased the Philips UroNav fusion-biopsy system from Andover, Mass.–based Philips Healthcare (NYSE: PHG) and started using it in November.

“UroNav incorporates precise knowledge of the needle location within the prostate, and using a technology similar to GPS navigation it directs the biopsy needle to the heart of the suspicious lesion,” Dr. Gennady Bratslavsky, professor and chair of Upstate’s Department of Urology, said in the release.

“Compared with traditional biopsy technique that uses random prostate sampling, the new technology helps to avoid missing hard-to-find and often aggressive prostate cancer, and potentially helps give greater certainty as to the extent and aggressiveness of the disease, as well as allowing patients to avoid unnecessary repeat prostate biopsies,” Bratslavsky added.

He called the UroNav technology “a major breakthrough in the fight against prostate cancer.”

The procedure, which takes 30 minutes, is done on an outpatient basis under local anesthesia at Upstate Urology, the school said.

Upstate Urology is located 550 Harrison St. in Syracuse.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

PHOTO CAPTION: Upstate Medical University’s Prostate Cancer Team

PHOTO CREDIT: www.upstate.edu