New Device May Facilitate Kidney Cancer Diagnosis

Cook Medical, of Bloomington, Ind., has introduced BIGopsy Backloading Biopsy Forceps, a device that has a 4 mm³ biopsy cup to obtain large renal or ureteral tissue specimens for cancer diagnosis.

The larger sample size helps produce biopsy results without the need for repeat tissue-sampling procedures associated with other biopsy devices, according to Cook Medical.

To accommodate the large biopsy cup, BIGopsy has a replaceable handle that allows it to be backloaded through the working channel of an endoscope.

In a press release issued by Cook Medical, one of the inventors of the device, Jaime Landman, MD, Director of Minimally Invasive Urology in the Department of Urology at Columbia University in New York, observed: “There have been a number of significant advancements in how we assess, view, and treat a tumor in the ureter or kidney, but what’s been missing is our ability to obtain adequately sized tissue samples for biopsy.”

From the June 01, 2010 Issue of Renal and Urology News