New ablation device rids cancer patients' spinal tumors

AUSTIN -- Imagine battling cancer only to find out tumors have spread to your spine, and they're incredibly painful. It frequently occurs in patients battling breast, prostate or lung cancer. There hasn't been much doctors could do – until now.

Radiofrequency ablation is nothing new, but a new device using that procedure is new. It's allowing patients to finally be rid of those painful, spinal tumors, so they can resume their chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

Susan Connors first learned she had breast cancer six years ago. She suffered a recurrence in 2012, but that's not the worst news she got.

"I didn't know that it had metastasized to my back," she said.

About a third of all breast, lung or prostate cancer patients develop incredibly painful tumors on their spines.

"I would be driving my car and I would practically pass out, because the pain would just practically – it would just black me out," said Connors.

Connors sank to her lowest point.

"I thought it was over," she said, holding back tears. "I just said to myself I'm going to have to do it myself."

And with the help of her doctors, including neuroradiology surgeon J. Neal Rutledge at the Austin Radiological Association.

"The white areas here show the tumor that has infiltrated the bone in her mid-spine," said Rutledge. "Before we didn't have ways to navigate within the bone to fully destroy the tumor and the nerves that cause the pain."

But now they do. It's called STAR or Spinal Tumor Ablation Radio-frequency developed by DFINE Inc. Physicians go directly into afflicted vertebra with a specially designed instrument that destroys tumors with radiofrequency energy. Unlike other forms of Radiofrequency Ablation – the STAR difference is found in the tip of the device.

"Previously the needles were straight, so we didn't have the ability to navigate within the bone to fully encompass all of the tumor or all the nerves that were causing the pain," said Rutledge.

Cement is then put in the bone to prevent the spine from collapsing. Connors says the STAR treatment has given her a newfound confidence to continue her breast cancer treatment and rehabilitation.

"I feel like I've been given a second chance," she said.

Unlike other radiofrequency ablation procedures that are only about 50 percent successful – Dr. Rutledge says the STAR procedure has proven to be about 90 percent successful in reducing patient's pain to zero. Connors told me she is now pain-free in her spine.

Click here to learn more about the STAR ablation procedure from DFINE Inc.

Click here for a link to Austin Radiological Association