By: Tomas Ronolski - AllPennyStocks.com News

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

For obvious reasons, some of the most difficult tumors to resect occur in the brain and spine. Giomas, named as such because they arise from glial cells, represent up to 80 percent of all malignant brain tumors. The sad fact is that brain tumors come with a very grim prognosis, with about 5,000 of the 10,000 people diagnosed annually in the United States with a malignant glioma dying within 12 months. Drugs, such a temozolomide, can only do so much. IMRIS, Inc. (TSX:IM) (Nasdaq:IMRS) has developed a comprehensive technology to help give patients and surgeons a bit more hope when they hear the diagnosis. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company has developed and is marketing its Visius Surgical Theatre, a multifunctional surgical environment that delivers real-time intraoperative vision to doctors to assist in making decisions in treatment of conditions, such as glioma surgery.

The first-of-its-kind system consists of a ceiling mounted magnetic resonance (MR) scanner and integrated x-ray angiography system. The system, for the first time ever, allows a patient to be scanned, treated and then scanned again to verify the thoroughness of the surgery without ever leaving the table.

Intraoperative MR imaging, or iMRI, has proven benefits. In 55 percent of glioma cases, a surgeon will resect additional tumor after iMRI. After seeing iMR, a surgeon modifies the procedure 40 percent of the time. The percentage of patients with total resection of a tumor increases by 30 percent when iMRI is used. iMRI is also credited with reducing repeat surgery to resect the residual tumor by 84 percent in two years. It seems likely that given these facts, every person would make sure iMRI is used if they’re going under the knife for glioma. IMRIS has made it not only available, but far more efficient.

IMRIS is making solid inroads to greater revenue through partnerships with company’s like industry stalwart Siemens Healthcare, whose computed tomography (CT) products are used as a key part of the IMRIS Visius intraoperative CT (iCT) system. The essence of the technology to easily maneuver a patient for intraoperative scanning is the same, but CT scans and MRIs are different in several ways, including what they are best used to diagnose.

On Tuesday, IMRIS added another batch of data validating the effectiveness of their platforms in glioma tumors. Neurosurgeons from Huashan Hospital at Fudan University in Shanghai, China received a prestigious clinical journal award for their preliminary results which suggest that high-field iMRI within the Visius Surgical Theatre contributes to increased complete resection rates in glioma tumors. The neurosurgical team led by Dr. Jin-song Wu was honored with the Journal of Neuro-Oncology Award at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting on October 21 in San Francisco for their presented research.

The team used the IMRIS Visius Surgical Theatre with iMRI installed at Huashan Hospital. It’s one of three IMRIS systems installed in China. In the study, 114 patients were enrolled, with complete resection rates of 86 percent in the iMRI group versus 53 percent in the control group.

"Our preliminary results confirm some of the assumptions that intraoperative MRI enables reliable resection control to eliminate the effect of brain shift on extent of resection," Dr. Wu said. "This leads to more improved progression free survival and quality of life than using conventional neuronavigation. Although these are early results we believe they are showing trends to statistical significance and will be the highest level of iMRI evidence for glioma surgery to date."

Investors will be looking closely to see if shares of IM have found an inflection point at $1.52. Shares hit that level earlier this month as part of a long-term downtrend that has seen shares fall from over $8 since early 2011. The stock price has edged up from those lows, but closed down on Tuesday by 2.3 percent at $1.71.

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