Cervical cancer kills nearly 4,000 American women annually, and about 11,000 new cases will be diagnosed in 2008. Treatments up to this time have included chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Now a new means of delivering radiation called “Gynocyte” is in the final stages of launch.
Gynocyte improves on the old method of radiation treatment, in which a clumsy and painful metal device was inserted in the vagina for a three-day period. According to Aaron Wolfson, M.D., from the University of Miami, the old device could fall out and was not capable of delivering a high dose of radiation.
Wolfson, who is the designer of the new Gynocyte device, says it is more user-friendly as well as being more effective. It’s a simple plastic cylinder about seven to ten inches long that conducts radiation pellets to the cancer site and holds them in place for two to three days. According to Wolfson, “It allows us to give a very intense amount of radiation to the tumor with little damage to the nearby and normal tissues. You can give enough dose to cure the cancer without harming the patient.”
Wolfson says it’s safer than the old device and can often be used without pain medication. Also, while the old device was only 60 to 70 percent effective, clinical trials show that Gynocyte has a success rate approaching 90 percent.
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