A recent video interview with Augustine Y. Cheung, PhD, President and CEO of Medifocus, explains how the company’s technology can help women with breast cancer. By offering targeted heat treatment for breast cancer, Medifocus’ technology can shrink tumors up to 8 cm in size to small enough to be removed with a lumpectomy. The equipment, known as the Adaptive Phased Array (APA)-1000 system, has received regulatory approvals from the FDA to conduct the Phase III trials necessary for marketing the system.
A lumpectomy represents a better chance for a woman to keep her breasts over a full or partial mastectomy, which removes most of or even all of the breast tissue in order to keep the cancer from spreading. As Dr. Cheung says, “The majority of women after careful consideration still elect to have total breast removal because they don’t want to compromise their life by waiting, postponing the surgery.” Medifocus’ technology may give women an alternative to full mastectomies when they’re struggling with breast cancer.
According to Dr. Cheung, ““We can shrink the tumor size an additional 50% over treatment with neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone.” He says that women who use Medifocus’ heat targeting technology have a better than 90% chance to get a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy, as shown in Phase II trials. This is an significant improvement over neoadjuvant chemotherapy’s 22% success rate .
Dr. Cheung is an internationally-known microwave expert. He has presented papers globally and taught at the University of Maryland. He has developed multiple focused heat based tumor targeting cancer treatment devices and pharmaceuticals. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland.