CSA Medical unveils new truFreeze Spray Cryotherapy System

May 21 2012

CSA Medical, Inc. unveiled the new truFreeze® Spray Cryotherapy System this week at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2012 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The truFreeze System is the Company's latest technology platform that is designed to deliver extremely cold liquid nitrogen spray through a small catheter to flash freeze a variety of unwanted tissue surfaces inside the body, including obstructed or diseased tissue.

“As the inventor of spray cryotherapy, I have been very pleased with the safety, efficacy and patient-tolerability of this procedure and it is the preferred ablation technique in my practice”

"We have taken what we've learned from more than 8,000 spray cryotherapy procedures and worked closely with the clinical community to understand how to enhance our technology to best suit their needs and address a variety of new clinical applications," said Bill Floyd, CEO and President of CSA Medical. "The new truFreeze System is designed to provide customers with the ease-of-use, versatility, control and functionality that is needed to safely and effectively expand utilization and bring the benefits of spray cryotherapy to more patients."

CSA Medical's spray cryotherapy technology was introduced to the market in 2007 for endoscopic ablation to treat esophageal disease. The technology has since been adopted at leading healthcare facilities across the country. In February 2012, the company received 510(k) clearance for the truFreeze Spray Cryotherapy System for use as a cryosurgical tool for the destruction of unwanted tissue in the fields of dermatology, gynecology and general surgery. CSA Medical will now conduct post-market clinical studies to support new indications for the truFreeze System and the company expects to begin shipping the new system this fall.

"As the inventor of spray cryotherapy, I have been very pleased with the safety, efficacy and patient-tolerability of this procedure and it is the preferred ablation technique in my practice," said Mark Johnston, MD, FACG, AGAF at the Lancaster Gastroenterology Procedure Center. "With CSA Medical's technology, I've been able to provide relief and significant improvements to quality of life for many patients. The new truFreeze system has further advanced this technology to provide a more practical and user friendly tool for clinicians that I believe will help make spray cryotherapy more broadly applicable in clinical practice."

How spray cryotherapy works:

During an endoscopy, the physician inserts an endoscope through the mouth to enable viewing of tissue and threads a truFreeze spray catheter through the endoscope. Using the truFreeze System console to control the liquid nitrogen (cryogen) flow, the physician sprays the targeted tissue. The sprayed area is allowed to thaw naturally, and the freeze-thaw cycle is typically repeated several times as determined necessary by the physician. This rapid freeze and slow thaw of tissue has proven to destroy the targeted cells, while preserving the underlying collagen structure, thereby providing a scaffold for healthy tissue to re-grow.