Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and GE Healthcare have inked a deal to co-develop WaveCheck, an ultrasound tool designed to monitor breast cancer response to chemotherapy.
Making use of conventional ultrasound equipment, WaveCheck employs ultrasound to visually demonstrate if chemotherapy is destroying a breast cancer tumor, in as little as one week after treatment begins, according to Sunnybrook. The institution said that the ultrasound chemotherapy monitoring technology was invented, refined, and tested by Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of radiation oncology at Sunnybrook's Odette Cancer Centre, and Michael Kolios, professor of physics and associate dean of research and graduate studies at Ryerson University.
Clinical testing of WaveCheck is currently underway at Sunnybrook and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; 20 Canadian and 20 U.S. women with locally advanced breast cancer are participating in the study.
The Sunnybrook/GE partnership was brokered by MaRS Innovation, a commercialization agent for Toronto universities.
