Urology specialist Professor Vincent Gnanapragasam and his team at Cambridge University and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust devised the Cambridge Prostate Biopsy Device (CamPROBE) to reduce the risk of infection compared with traditional transrectal biopsies. CamPROBE is also expected to cost less than half of existing devices.
Prostate cancer has usually been diagnosed with a transrectal needle biopsy of the prostate, guided by an ultrasound probe inserted into the rectum. According to the team, this approach carries a significant risk of side effects, including urinary infections and severe sepsis, as the needle traverses the rectal wall several times on the way to the prostate. Consequently, medical and professional bodies now advocate using the transperineal route - the space between the legs and under the scrotum - instead.
The CamPROBE is designed to be a simple way of accessing the prostate via the transperineal route in an outpatient setting. It requires two incisions instead of the typical 12 in related devices, and incorporates a needle sheathed within a coaxial cannula to deliver local anaesthetic.
In a statement, Prof Gnanapragasam said: "In a multi-centre clinical investigation study, there were no reports of infections, device deficiencies or safety issues from use of the device – and cancer detection rates were equivalent to other means of biopsy. Procedure times were short and only low amounts of local anaesthetic were required, yet low pain scores were reported by patients. More than 85 per cent of patients said they would recommend the CamPROBE procedure to someone else as a method of having a prostate biopsy done."
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Health Tech Enterprise and Cambridge Enterprise secured intellectual property protection for the CamPROBE device. They also helped with grant funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to enable the CamPROBE device to be refined, clinically evaluated and commercialised.
A licensing agreement for CamPROBE has been agreed with product development company JEB Technologies, which is launching the device at MEDICA 2022 in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 14-17 November.
Sean Licence, head of medical devices at JEB Technologies, said: "The sheathed, coaxial cannula design means CamPROBE can be used to carry out biopsies under local anaesthetic by a single operator with one assistant. As well as being a free-hand device, the low cost of CamPROBE sets it apart from other devices that use the transperineal route."
CamPROBE was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Cambridge Clinical Research Facility, and funded with an NIHR i4i (Invention for Innovation) product development award.
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