ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Breast cancer is enough of an ordeal without the painful wire implants or radiation-emitting seeds used to mark tumors before a guided lumpectomy. In response to moving patient testimonials, MOLLI Surgical has created a line of localization products that minimize patient risk and discomfort while maximizing physician confidence.
Medical physicist Ananth Ravi, PhD, was overseeing a large radiation oncology program in Toronto when he began hearing in visceral detail firsthand accounts from lumpectomy patients about the pain endured during their treatments. “While we did a great job getting rid of the cancer, they remember this traumatic experience,” says Ravi. Many complaints were lodged specifically at the radiological tumor marking process that precedes surgery.
The problem, Ravi explains, is that the marking instruments used most commonly today are based on 1970s technology and require an implant to be wired with a hook into the tumor mass that protrudes from the breast. One troubling example of the trauma that breast cancer patients go through, as Ravi recalls, is that of a patient who, after being marked with such an implant, reported waiting hours for surgery after being bumped from her time slot several times, and eventually fainted from anxiety in the waiting room. The alternative to a wired device is a radioactive seed, which exposes already vulnerable patients to radiation, in addition to the radiation that may be necessary for their treatment.
Ravi knew patients needed a novel, less invasive way of tumor marking, and to that end he founded MOLLI Surgical, which had its first FDA 510(k) clearance in April 2021 for a magnetic localization device with no wires or radiation. Health Canada approval followed shortly after, as did adoption of MOLLI by Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, where it replaced radioactive seeds. Using a 3.2-mm magnetic marker small enough to be delivered via a biopsy needle, the MOLLI system (see Figure 1) allows radiologists to mark the center or boundaries of a tumor. Later, they can pinpoint the marker’s magnetic signature with an intuitive probe that provides audiovisual feedback about both direction and distance. When the tumor is removed, the marker or markers come with it.
