Monteris Medical Wins Gold 2015 Medical Design Excellence Award For NeuroBlate® System

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Jun 11, 2015, 08:00 ET

PLYMOUTH, Minn., June 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Monteris Medical today announced that its NeuroBlate^® System, a minimally invasive robotic laser thermotherapy tool for treating neurological lesions, has been selected as a gold winning product in the "Surgical Equipment, Instruments, and Supplies" category of the 2015 Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA). The 2015 MDEA winners were announced at the MDEA Ceremony held on June 9^th at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, in conjunction with the MD&M East Event.

"We are honored to receive the 2015 Medical Design Excellence Awards for our innovative NeuroBlate System," said John Schellhorn, President and CEO of Monteris Medical. "NeuroBlate is providing surgeons with an additional therapeutic modality for treating thousands of patients diagnosed with neurological diseases and intracranial lesions each year, and we are proud to be recognized alongside so many other outstanding medical technology companies."

The NeuroBlate System is considered to be minimally invasive surgery. With the NeuroBlate System, a surgeon makes a small hole in the skull, approximately as wide as a pencil. A small probe is then used to deliver laser light energy to heat and destroy the targeted tissue. The NeuroBlate System combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and software-based visualization to allow surgeons to remotely ablate lesions in many locations in the brain, at the surface or deep inside, through a computer module. An MRI compatible robotic probe driver helps the surgeon precisely guide the laser probe to the site and apply heat to it in controlled amounts, until the targeted tissue is destroyed.

With its minimally invasive approach, the NeuroBlate System has shown results analogous to open surgery.¹ Patients undergoing procedures with the NeuroBlate System may experience less pain compared with those undergoing open surgical procedures and reduced hospital length of stay over open surgical procedures.^{^1,2,}^³

The MDEAs are broadly considered to be one of the medical technology industry's premier design competitions and its judges are committed to searching worldwide for the highest caliber medical devices that save lives, improve patient healthcare and transform medical technology. Finalists are judged on categories including design and engineering innovation, patient benefits and functional innovation.

About the NeuroBlate System^®

The NeuroBlate System is FDA-cleared to ablate, necrotize or coagulate soft tissue encountered in the discipline of neurosurgery through the application of laser thermotherapy. NeuroBlate is a tool (as opposed to a "treatment") and is not intended to treat any specific disease. Physicians should use their clinical judgment and experience when deciding whether to use NeuroBlate.

Since it received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April 2013, the NeuroBlate System has been adopted for use in more than 22 leading institutions across the country including Cleveland Clinic, UC San Diego Health System, Barnes Jewish Hospital, Washington University and Yale New Haven Hospital. Monteris Medical supports the installation of new systems with comprehensive hands-on training and ongoing technical support.

Full prescribing information for the NeuroBlate System is available at www.monteris.com.

About Monteris^®

Monteris Medical is a privately held company developing innovative MRI-guided, laser-based brain lesion therapy. Monteris Medical markets the NeuroBlate^® System, a neurosurgical ablation device providing controlled therapy for difficult-to-treat brain lesions. Monteris also offers the AXiiiS^® Stereotactic Miniframe; a single use platform for image-guided, stereotactic brain biopsy; and the AtamA™ Stabilization System for MRI-guided neurosurgical procedures requiring head fixation.

For more information on Monteris Medical please visit www.monteris.com.

About the Medical Design Excellence Awards

The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) competition is the Medtech Industry's Premier Awards Program. Since its inception in 1998, the mission of the MDEA has been to recognize significant advances in medical product design and engineering that improve the quality of healthcare delivery and accessibility. Designed to focus attention upon the complexity of product development and to showcase examples of what can be achieved when it is well done, the MDEA celebrates the achievements of medical product manufacturers, their suppliers, and the many people behind the scenes – engineers, scientists, designers, and clinicians—who are responsible for the groundbreaking products that are saving lives, improving patient healthcare, and changing the face of medtech.

¹ Hawasli AH, Bagade S, Shimony JS, et al. Magnetic resonance imaging-guided focused laser interstitial thermal therapy for intracranial lesions: single-institution series. Neurosurgery. 2013 Dec; 73(6):1007-17.

² Sloan AE, Ahluwalia MS, Valerio-Pascua J, et al. Results of the NeuroBlate System first-in-humans Phase I clinical trial for recurrent glioblastoma: clinical article. J Neurosurg. 2013 Jun; 118(6):1202-19.

³ Mohammadi, AM and Schroeder, JL. Laser interstitial thermal therapy in treatment of brain tumors – the NeuroBlate System. Expert Review of Medical Devices 2014 11:2, 109-119.

SOURCE Monteris Medical