Real-time bioimpedance based biopsy device

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over the last three decades the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer has increased 85% as a result of new screening and diagnostic tools. However, a significant number of these newly diagnosed men are harboringclinically insignificant disease, which means that they are not likely to die from prostate cancer. A difficul decision facing urologists daily is determining whether a man with some degree of prostate cancer needs to be treated or not. Currently, men whohave elevated PSA levels or abnormal digital rectal examinations are biopsied to confirm presence of prostate cancer. Unfortunately, typical biopsy protocols sample less than 1% of the entire prostate. As a result, regions of cancer are often entirely missed by biopsy and the small volumes of cancer sampled in other cases do not always provide an accurate assessment of the extent and aggressiveness of the disease. We propose to develop a commercial prototype of a sensor-equipped biopsy needle capable o