Sicel Technologies : About

Every patient is different. Every tumor is different.
The disease mutates differently and at different rates. If only clinicians could know for sure what's happening at the tumor level, treatment could be individualized and optimized.

At Sicel, that is our aim: to help clinicians know for sure.
The implantable wireless sensors, placed in previously inaccessible areas, gather data on tumor cell kinetics and physiology and transfer the information from the patient's body to a computer which the physician can easily access.

It is this system that may allow, for the first time, individualized cancer therapy.

The need to know
The major goal of cancer therapy is to eliminate all tumor cells. But there's a real challenge: how to achieve maximum tumor cell kill without excessively damaging normal tissue. Knowledge of specific changes occurring within a tumor is extremely important in meeting the goals of therapy. In the case of chemotherapy, for example, the cytotoxic agents that are used are most effective at specific times and in certain conditions of tumor growth; ongoing information about tumor cells would allow more effective dosing, more efficient timing and more control of the choice of agent.

The challenge, then, is how to gain this knowledge. Current procedures - biopsy, MRI and PET, to name a few - can be invasive and costly. What's more, the information gathered is based on only one snapshot in time.

But Sicel systems are designed to provide ongoing data throughout the treatment process.

Gathering the data
Sicel has created a sensor that can be implanted near the periphery of a tumor and in adjacent critical tissue.

Upon approval by the FDA, the sensor-based system will gather data that may, for the first time ever, provide clinicians and scientists with the ability to increase the efficacy and efficiency of current and future cancer treatments.

Collecting the data
Once the sensor gathers the information, Sicel's innovative technology telemetrically forwards the information to an outside computer. The physician can then access the data gathered and use the data to decide the most appropriate time and modality for the next treatment session.

Using the data
Clinicians may gain the kind of precise, accurate information needed in order to develop individualized, targeted treatment - treatment that may, in fact, decrease patient morbidity and hospitalization and increase rates of survival.