Leading Oncology Physicians from United States and Europe to Meet in Boston June 11 and 12 to Learn about Important New Treatment for Liver Cancer.

CHICAGO -- Symposium to Focus on Infusion of Microspheres, Which Has Proven Effective at Treating Many Forms of Liver Cancer, Including Cancers Resistant to Chemotherapy. The Procedure Offers New Hope to Tens of Thousands Who Annually Develop Cancers in the Liver

Dozens of leading specialists in new oncology treatments for cancer will meet in Boston June 11 and 12 to learn about a promising new procedure that has proven effective at treating unresectable (inoperable) liver cancer. Each year in the United States, an estimated 150,000 new patients will develop cancer in the liver, and 95 percent will die. Given these numbers, infusion of yttrium-90 microspheres -- the topic of the meeting in Boston -- has the potential to save tens of thousands of patients every year.

Infusion of yttrium-90 microspheres, as this new procedure is best known, is the subject of "Liver Directed Radiotherapy with Microspheres: A Clinical Symposium," which will be held at the Omni Parker House Hotel in downtown Boston. The media is invited to attend to learn more.

Infusion of microspheres is minimally invasive, is typically done on an outpatient basis and causes little or no damage to surrounding healthy tissue. The procedure has shown tremendous promise, with up to a 90 percent response rate to treatment, and has proven effective at treating liver cancer patients whose tumors have become resistant to chemotherapy, or for whom chemotherapy was not effective.

The course director for the symposium is Dr. Andrew Kennedy, co-medical director of Wake Radiology Oncology Services, which is located in the Greater Raleigh, N.C., metropolitan area. Kennedy has played a pivotal role over the past six years developing the procedure and was responsible early on in establishing the FDA protocols for infusion of microspheres, which is also referred to as SIRT (Selective Internal Radiation Therapy).

Kennedy, who is one of the world's leading experts on the treatment of liver tumors, said that over 150,000 patients in the United States develop primary and metastatic liver tumors each year. Of that number, approximately half could be treated with infusion of microspheres, following proper screening. For example, Kennedy sited an article from The New England Journal of Medicine that said colon cancer alone results in over 77,000 new cases of metastases to the liver each year. Studies indicate that other forms of primary cancer lead to another 70,000-plus cases each year of liver metastases.

"I don't believe it's well known that metastatic liver cancer is a major cause of death in the United States," said Kennedy. "It's the final common pathway for many solid tumors, often leads to death and is incurable."

Meanwhile, said Kennedy, infusion of microspheres has been successful at saving, or at least extending the lives, of the more than 1,500 patients who have been treated since 2002 when yttrium-90 microspheres (SIR-Spheres(R)) were approved for use by the FDA.

One of the nation's leading specialists in gastrointestinal medical oncology, Dr. Nancy E. Kemeny from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, will be leading a session at the symposium. The course faculty also includes prominent liver cancer specialists from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The symposium is co-sponsored by Wake Radiology Oncology Services and the Medical Education Collaborative, which will provide Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit to attendees. The corporate sponsor of the symposium is Sirtex Medical, Inc., an Australian-based company that has developed SIR-Spheres, the only fully FDA-approved product for use with this procedure. SIR-Spheres are very small beads, approximately 32 microns in size or about one-third the diameter of a strand of hair.

SIR-Spheres are used to deliver targeted, internal radiation therapy directly to the tumor and are typically administered on an outpatient basis by a specially trained physician. During the procedure, a small catheter is guided into the liver and the SIR-Spheres are infused through the catheter. The microspheres, which have been irradiated with yttrium-90, are carried by the bloodstream directly to the tumors in the liver where they preferentially lodge in the small vessels feeding the tumor. The SIR-Spheres deliver their doses of radiation during a period of approximately two weeks. Unlike conventional external beam radiation, which can only be applied to limited areas of the liver, SIR-Spheres selectively irradiate the tumors with an average penetration of 2.5 mm and therefore have the ability to deliver more potent doses of radiation directly to the cancer cells over a longer period of time.

The procedure is currently administered at approximately 45 cancer centers throughout the United States, including the University of Maryland Cancer Center, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the University of Wisconsin Cancer Center, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, the University of Connecticut, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Vanderbilt University Hospital. The physicians attending the June 11 and 12 symposium in Boston will play a pivotal role in expanding the availability of this procedure, by taking infusion of microspheres back to their communities in the United States and Europe.

Sirtex Medical, Inc., is dedicated to researching and implementing effective treatments for liver cancer utilizing small-particle technology. Founded in Perth, Australia, in 1997 to capitalize on technologies and treatments developed by Dr. Bruce Gray and the Cancer Research Institute, Sirtex today operates offices in Chicago, Ill., Sidney, Australia, and Bonn, Germany. Infusion of microspheres using SIR-Spheres is currently being administered in more than 200 medical facilities around the world.

Wake Radiology Oncology Services is a leading cancer treatment center in the Southeast. Specialties include traditional external beam radiation treatments in conjunction with 3D conformal therapy and intensity modulated radiation therapy, as well as infusion of microspheres for liver cancer and MammoSite for the treatment of breast cancer.

For additional information on the symposium, Sirtex or Wake Radiology Oncology Services, contact Glenna Musante at [phone] Ext. 126 or go to www.wakeoncology.com or www.sirtex.com.