Tissue Cooling System Specifically Designed for Prostate Surgery

The UroCool catheter system is designed to be placed within the rectal cavity adjacent to the prostate during surgery. The UroCool is used in conjunction with a control console, which circulates cold saline in a closed loop within the catheter to allow for localized cooling. The UroCool catheter system is being developed by InnerCool Therapies, the operating arm of Cardium Therapeutics (San Diego, CA, USA), and is being incorporated into ongoing clinical studies at the University of California Irvine (UCI; USA), which are designed to provide additional information regarding the safety and usefulness of the device pending submission for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"Our findings using localized cooling techniques during robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy surgery indicate that cooling resulted in a statistically significant faster recovery of urinary continence following surgery,” said Thomas E. Ahlering, M.D., professor and vice chair of the department of urology at UCI. "In addition, based on my surgical experience with therapeutic cooling, I believe that our ongoing studies may offer the potential to demonstrate improved post-operative erectile function for patients as well.”

"InnerCool has now developed a specialized tissue-specific cooling catheter that is being developed to work with InnerCool's current Celsius Control Console which has been marketed and sold since 2003,” added Christopher J. Reinhard, Chairman and CEO of Cardium Therapeutics and InnerCool Therapies. "The new UroCool system may provide an important opportunity to potentially enhance patient recovery of urinary control and erectile function following prostate surgery. These side effects of prostate surgery are serious, profound and frequent, and all too often patients defer proper surgical treatment because of these quality-of-life issues, underscoring the importance of new therapeutic approaches.”

Related Links:
Cardium Therapeutics
University of California Irvine