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Concord-based startup gRadiant Research LLC is trying to make tonsil treatments easier for the patient to swallow, with a new handheld device.
Usually, doctors treat patients with a tonsillectomy, which requires cutting out most or all of the organ. While there have been minor improvements to this treatment in the areas of pain and bleeding reduction, it doesn’t completely solve the post-operative problems, said Kathleen McMillan founder and president of gRadiant. A tonsillectomy is the most common surgery for children. At Children’s Hospital in Boston, some 8 percent of patients that undergo the tonsillectomy procedure require re-admittance to be treated for pain, bleeding or dehydration, she said.
As an alternative to this surgery, gRadiant is developing a thermal-based device, she said. Some types of tissue will respond to moderate heat by atrophy or cell death, and the tonsils are among those tissues, she said. By applying heat to the tonsils, a doctor could reduce their size without needing to cut them, she said. The gRadiant thermal device would also cut down the costs incurred through the use of painkillers and antibiotic medications. Older children and adults could be treated in the physican’s office instead of the operating room.
This could be a completely “revolutionary” treatment over the typical tonsillectomy that surgeons have done for many years, said Mark Volk, a surgeon at Children’s Hospital. Should the technology prove effective, doctors will embrace it wholeheartedly, he predicted. “The idea of doing a tonsil procedure and not having to worry about bleeding is phenomenal,” said Volk.
The firm received $250,000 in angel funding to pay for preclinical feasibility research, slated for completion by year’s end. Currently, McMillan needs about $3.2 million to develop the first clinical prototype and to do the necessary clinical studies in children and adults. She anticipates being on the market by 2012; the device could potentially garner some $75 million annually in the United States alone.
Although the exact details haven’t been finalized, the gRadiant system would consist of a disposable handheld thermal device connected to a tabletop-sized piece of hardware. The basic technology is being created in house, but McMillan is working with researchers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth to do the preclinical and other testing. This is her first startup; prior to this, she was vice president of Candela Corp. in Wayland, which makes laser and light-based technologies to treat cosmetic and medical conditions.
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