RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:New Press Release - Theralase(R) Provides Update on Bladder Cancer Clinical StudyHopefully old school urologists and big pharma will listen to the experts - this ain't your grandpappy's oncological PDT!
Ashish Kamat: Yeah. Speaking of systemic side effects, I remember the previous times of photosensitizers, where patients had to literally cover themselves from head to toe and go about. And you don't have to do that with this one. If you could just enlighten the audience a little bit on the mechanistic as to why is this new agent so much different from the older ones? Because some of them might be remembering the old data, and might be a little gun shy. So a little bit there
Girish Kulkarni: For sure. The old data, we had a lot of bladder fibrosis. So here the idea is that the compound is specific just to bladder cancer cells. It's a transfer and mediated uptake into the bladder cancer cell. So it's supposed to spare the non-bladder cancer cell because of the lower expression of transferrin (receptors on) the normal urothelium. So that's one component. The green laser light doesn't penetrate as much as older light modalities, so that decreases the fibrosis as well. And the device actually has detectors for the illumination.
So when the green light is shone in the center of the bladder, what happens is it can pick up the light that is emanating from the actual probe, but also the light that may be bouncing around within the bladder. So there's a bit more control as to providing a dose, and the dose is 90 joules per centimeter squared. We as urologists don't have to calculate that, which is good, because I don't know how to calculate it. It's done through the proprietary machine created by Theralase.
Ashish Kamat: Right. And then just to emphasize, this is the next generation of photodynamic therapy, not what we used to have back in the late '90s or early 2000s. And obviously, the results that you're presenting are encouraging, and we hope that it pans out for our patient's sake. So Girish, thanks again for taking the time during your busy AUA schedule and sharing this with us.
Girish Kulkarni: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
N0taP00p wrote: @consultant99: Been wondering the same. I think it might be the hangover from Photofrin and it's side effects that may be hampering the acceptance of PDTs as a mainstream option. Hopefully, the message about safety will get through eventually. Don't know about convertible debentures as an option. They don't have anything other than patents as an asset right now. Once those are validated via a BTD, it might allow them to consider it? Thanks for your thoughts.