BOP and Lakes Urologists adopt Cxbladder

Patients presenting with symptoms of bladder cancer and those under surveillance of bladder cancer in the Bay of Plenty and Lakes District Health Board regions will now be evaluated as part of their clinical program, with Pacific Edge's non-invasive urine sampling Cxbladder Detect test.

Bay of Plenty and Lakes District urologists are the latest to join the list of New Zealand clinicians and DHBs who are being signed by Pacific edge Diagnostics to offer their patients Cxbladder Detect. Cxbladder is a superior technology with its ability to detect nearly 100 per cent of urinary tract carcinomas[1], in preference to cytology for the detection and monitoring of patients who may have bladder cancer.

Like MidCentral DHB, which began using Cxbladder Detect in June, BOP urologists will use Cxbladder Detect to evaluate patients presenting with blood in the urine (haematuria) as part of their clinical regime. This new strategy is expected to involve local GPs (the patient's primary point of contact when symptoms occur) using Cxbladder Detect to help prioritise those patients who need to be seen urgently. They will also be able to identify low risk patients who do not require a full clinical work-up for bladder cancer, saving the public health system considerable associated expense, not to mention the inconvenience to the patients. Less than one in twenty of those patients with micro-haematuria are found to need further treatment for bladder cancer.

Pacific Edge is a Dunedin-based cancer diagnostic company leading in the development and commercialisation of molecular diagnostic tests. Pacific Edge Chief Executive Officer David Darling says there are significant potential savings to be made in the New Zealand health budget if all DHBs adopt Cxbladder Detect for the early evaluation and further analysis of patients presenting with haematuria.

"Many New Zealanders may have heard Sir Peter Leitch talk on television last year about the ease of use and high degree of confidence he and his clinician had in Cxbladder Detect (See TVNZ One News Video) for monitoring his recovery from bladder cancer. Those benefits are now being made available to nearly half a million New Zealanders [488,280 : pop numbers from MOH website] within the BOP, Lakes regions and the Mid Central DHB.

"Cxbladder Detect will allow clinicians in these three regions to provide better clinical outcomes for patients referred for urological evaluation and contribute considerable efficiencies for patients and healthcare providers, from its use."

Bay of Plenty urologist, Mark Fraundorfer says that now is the right time to start using Cxbladder Detect. "Pacific Edge have gathered the clinical data and published in a peer reviewed journal, and the superior performance over cytology is clear. BOP (and Lakes) urologists have used Cxbladder Detect in a variety of clinical settings in both public and our private clinics over the last nine months, confirming the performance of the technology. Cxbladder Detect provides better information about the patients being referred to urologists and allows us to increase our focus on the patients that need further evaluation and treatment, and will avoid a significant number of unnecessary procedures. This is a good outcome for both the patients and the public health system as a whole."

A recently completed clinical user programme involving 178 patients undertaken by Waitemata District Health Board and Urology Associates in conjunction with Canterbury DHB has confirmed the successful results of a multi-centre international peer reviewed study of 485 patients published in the prestigious American Journal of Urology in September 2012. Both studies showed that Cxbladder Detect identified correctly nearly 100 per cent of tumours of concern to clinicians, including those that cytology and several that cystoscopy did not identify.Œæ The results of the two centre New Zealand user programme are expected to be formally published later this year.

For clinicians and DHBs focused on providing the very best cost effective healthcare for New Zealanders, Cxbladder Detect provides a number of significant advantages that have the potential to change clinical practice and lower the overall cost of managing the patient's disease:

• The Cxbladder Detect Urine Sampling System (USS) can be sent directly to the patient at home or to their GP clinic, thereby reducing waiting times to see a specialist within the public hospital system.
• Cxbladder Detect provides an accurate and cost effective way of evaluating patients presenting with blood in their urine (haematuria), before they get to the clinic and
• Cxbladder Detect is non-invasive and enhances a patient's compliance with their cancer management regime as defined by the urologist.