Multiple clinical applications of multiple ablation technologies

Wednesday, 10 November 2010 21:28 |

Healthcare Blogs - Healthcare Reflections Blogs

One of the more active areas of medical technology development is the use of a different, typically energy-based technologies to cause the ablation of tissue for various therapeutic benefits, whether the excision or destruction of cancerous or other diseased tissue, the dissection and ligation of tissue, or other therapeutic benefit such as creation of therapeutic lesions in treatment of atrial fibrillation. The fundamental mechanism, the destruction of tissue, is central to many different technologies that cause such ablation. These include microwave, radiofrequency, ultrasound, laser/light, thermal, hydromechanical, radiation, cryotherapy and others.

Each of these technologies has features that make them applicable to a wide range of tissue types and applications. In few cases does one modality hold sway over a significant share of disease type or tissue target.

Yet, manufacturers are interested in knowing how many ablation procedures are performed, per ablation technology type per specific clinical application AND, moreover, the manufacturer revenues associated with each modality/clinical application combination.

But it really is a morass of overlapping applications, modalities and revenues. We learned this clearly in a gargantuan study of the worldwide ablation technologies market. Narrowed as it was to characterize clinical applications, products, markets and companies, the scope of the analysis of ablation technologies was so extensive as to result in a nearly 500 page document.

For the sake of those who are interested, we wanted to summarize the aggregate target of ablation technology applications, at least in terms of the major clinical targets.

Condition	Incidence (per 100,000)	Prevalence
Atrial Fibrillation	76.2	5,100,000
Barrett's Esophagus	Unknown incidence, although judged to be on increase in US.	5.6% in general population; BE diagnosed at endoscopy in about 10-15% of pts with GERD.
BPH	Difficult to define incidence: depends on definition used.	Prevalence in men aged 55 to 74 without prostate cancer is 19%.
Brain	3.2	88,455
Breast	37.4	1,060,042
Colon & Rectum	17.4	786,327
Esophagus	8.1	175,949
Hemorrhoids	Unknown or insufficient data.	Prevalence of Hemorrhoids: 10.4 million people in the USA 1983-87. Approx 50% of the population have had this condition by the age of 50; 50% to 85% of the world's population will be affected by hemorrhoids at some time in their life.
Hypertension	Unknown or insufficient data.	Approx. 600 million people worldwide; escalating. Approx 1 in 5 or 18.38% or 50 million people in USA. More than 30% of the 50 million are undiagnosed. At least one-third are unable to control their HTN with medication alone.
Liver Cancer (HCC or hepatocellular carcinoma)	10.8	160,327
Lung	23.9	543,184
Menorrhagia (excessive menstrual bleeding)		About 52% of women of reproductive age, or about 707.5 million women globally. Affects approximately 10 million women in the United States.
Pancreas	4	56,157
Prostate cancer	25.3	604,506
Renal	3.6	151,482
Uterine fibroids	Unknown or insufficient data.	Approx 20-40% of women of reproductive age, about 13.6 million in USA, about 353.7 million worldwide.

Source: MedMarket Diligence, LLC, Report #A145, “Ablation Technologies Worldwide Market, 2009-2019: Products, Technologies, Markets, Companies and Opportunities.”