Kidney Trial Boosts Misonix Shares

By Kathleen Kerr, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Mar. 23–Shares of medical device maker Misonix Inc., of Farmingdale, soared more than 20 percent yesterday after it said its high-intensity-focused ultrasound instrument, Sonatherm 600, had destroyed cancerous kidney tissue without invading the organ.

Misonix said a team at the University of Vienna Medical School in Austria used the Sonatherm 600 to kill cancerous tissue in kidneys without removing the organ. The procedures were done as part of a trial.

Doctors inserted the instrument inside the patient’s abdomen but not inside the kidneys. The Sonatherm then produced ultrasound that destroyed cancerous tissue in the kidneys.

Cancerous parts of the kidneys were surgically removed, and tests revealed the diseased tissue had been destroyed, Misonix said. Misonix hopes the Sonatherm will enable doctors, in some cases, to kill cancerous kidney tissue and leave the organ in the body.

Dr. Michael Marburger, chairman of the urology department at the Vienna medical school, headed the team that tested the Sonatherm. “The process is unique, and our preliminary results to date in using the device are very exciting,” he said.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved the Sonatherm 600 for use in the United States to destroy soft tissue lesions during general surgery. The FDA did not require clinical trials because the Sonatherm was similar to devices it had already approved.

Richard Zaremba, Misonix’s chief financial officer, said the current trials will show how well the Sonatherm works on kidney cancer.

The device is not yet for sale, Zaremba said, declining to forecast possible sales. Misonix closed at $6.28, up 20.55 percent.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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