Grass Valley company gets FDA OK for prostate cancer imaging device
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 10:16 AM PDT

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/05/05/daily26.html

A Grass Valley company has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration
clearance to sell a new prostate cancer imaging machine.

The ei•Nav/Artemis device, developed by Eigen Corp., allows doctors to see
three-dimensional images of the prostate and helps them guide the needle
when they take a biopsy. It also records the precise location so doctors
can return to the site for follow-up evaluation.

The first Artemis systems will be used at the University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center and University of California San Francisco,
according to a press release. The machines work with urologists' existing
ultrasound machines, most of which produce only two-dimensional images.

"With an estimated 1.5 million (prostate) biopsies performed each year,
conventional biopsy is blind to cancer, as 20 to 30 percent of cancers are
missed and detected cancer may not be clinically relevant," said Al
Barqawi, director of research at the University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center, in the news release. "The benefits of advancements in
imaging will improve our ability to accurately guide tissue sampling,
improve diagnosis and manage the disease progression. We will be able to
treat patients to what they have, not what we think they have."

About one in six men develop prostate cancer.