Steven Hetts, MD & Anand Patel, MD Granted CTSI Catalyst Award!
Two physicians in the UCSF Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Dr. Steven Hetts, MD, an assistant professor of radiology and Anand S. Patel, MD, a third-year diagnostic radiology resident, were recently granted a Catalyst Award funded by UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The Catalyst Awards provide grants with a focus on development of four areas: therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, and digital health.
The funded project, “ChemoFilter: A Novel Device for High-Dose Chemotherapy Delivery," focuses on the development of an intravenous chemotherapy filter catheter to optimize chemotherapy dosage for tumors. “Anand did outstanding work in simulated blood experiments with doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug used to treat hepatic cancer,” says Hetts. “We believe this device will be a positive innovation for patients needing chemotherapy.”
Hetts and Patel based their research on the concept that by filtering the blood exiting a cancerous tumor, the chemotherapy could be removed from the patient’s body before it was able to infiltrate other organs or areas. “Transarterial Chemoembolization (TACE) is the main treatment for many malignancies” says Hetts. “One of the factors in chemotherapy delivery is that while chemotherapy directly targets the tumor, it can also deliver a large systemic dose to the patient that can adversely affect other areas of the patient’s body. The purpose of our device is to keep the systemic dose low by administering chemotherapy only to the cancerous tumor.” A patent has been filed for the new device.
Steven Hetts, MD, is Chief of Interventional Neuroradiology at San Francisco General Hospital and San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center. Anand Patel, MD is completing a year-long position in the NIH-funded T-32 training program in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging. The program is designed to give radiologists-in-training the skills required to become independent clinical scientific investigators and leaders in academic biomedical imaging.
For more information, please see here.