Pacific Edge Releases New Product Cxbladder Monitor

Cancer diagnostics company, Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB), has today released Cxbladder Monitor, its third new product in a suite of tests for the detection and management of bladder cancer. The test is now available in New Zealand and will be launched in other markets progressively over 2016 and 2017, starting with the USA later in 2016.

Worldwide, bladder cancer is the ninth most prevalent form of cancer and has a very high recurrence rate. Therefore, bladder cancer patients live in a world of ongoing monitoring and clinical intervention. Cxbladder Monitor is a proprietary test for urologists who are monitoring patients with bladder cancer for recurrence of the disease.

It is designed to be used on patients as part of their ongoing surveillance regime to quickly and accurately identify those who have a low probability of having recurrent cancers, providing ongoing reassurance to clinicians and their patients that the cancer hasn’t returned, or supporting the case for further urological investigation.

Cxbladder Monitor follows in the footsteps of Pacific Edge’s first two molecular diagnostic tests, Cxbladder Detect and Cxbladder Triage. Cxbladder Triage rules out patients who have a low probability of having cancer and Cxbladder Detect is used specifically to detect cancer. Both are used in the early evaluation in patients who present to the urologist with haematuria (blood in the urine and an early symptom of bladder cancer).

The introduction of Cxbladder Monitor rounds out the Cxbladder family of products with a one-stop-shop solution from preliminary evaluation of haematuria, to diagnosis within the urological evaluation as an adjunct to cystoscopy, right through to post-treatment surveillance for recurrence of bladder cancer. 

Pacific Edge Chief Executive Officer, David Darling, said: “The launch of Cxbladder Monitor complements our existing Cxbladder products and takes us a step closer to being able to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ of accurate non-invasive tests for urologists.

“Depending on the stage and grade of the initial cancer diagnosis, medical guidelines advocate follow-up cystoscopies every three months for the first couple of years post treatment, then six-monthly after that and annually after five years. Adding to that, 50-70% of high grade tumours have a recurrence and this resets the clock for surveillance meaning a longer period of evaluation and even more cystoscopies.

“Cxbladder Monitor will quickly and easily provide urologists with greater certainty of their clinical evaluations, the perfect adjunct test to cystoscopy.”

 A number of urologists in the USA and New Zealand have been involved in the clinical evaluation of Cxbladder Monitor, including NZ-based Dr Peter Gilling, who in addition to his clinical practice has recently been made Professor of Surgery at Auckland University.