Cancer treatment systems maker BSD Medical Corp ( BSDM ) ) has successfully rolled out its MicroThermX Microwave Ablation (MTX-180) for soft tissue ablation (destruction). The company has successfully placed three of these tissue devices at clinical sites across Utah and Michigan with the roll-out of a fourth system underway.

BSD Medical has stated that the first two systems have been placed at St. Mark’s Hospital, MountainStar Healthcare and the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The third system was installed at William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, while the fourth will be placed at Rhode Island Hospital shortly. The company has received encouraging feedback from the interventional oncologists following liver treatments with the MTX-180.

BSD Medical received FDA approval for MTX-180 in August 2010. Moreover, the company secured a safety certification in September 2010, which has established that MTX-180 is compliant with “IEC 60601-1”, an international standard of safety for medical devices and a vital tool for demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements globally.

The MTX-180 leverages BSD Medical’s proprietary synchronous phased array technology to deliver precision-guided microwave energy to ablate soft tissues using a single-patient-use disposable antenna.

The minimally-invasive device has been developed to provide treatments as a stand-alone therapy and has applications in open surgical and percutaneous (via needle-puncture of the skin) ablation procedures. As such, it can be used by both surgeons and interventional radiologists.

Soft tissues are tissues that connect, support or surround non-skeletal structures and include muscle, ligament, tendon, fascia, blood vessels, nerves and fat. Ablation therapies are widely used in cancers of soft issues (soft tissue sarcoma).

Currently, radiofrequency (“RF”) energy is most commonly used to deliver ablation therapy in the interventional oncology market. The MTX-180 system offers several key advantages over the legacy RF-based systems including delivery of wider ablation zones in less time employing microwave energy.

The global market potential for soft tissue ablation has been estimated to exceed $2.3 billion. BSD Medical competes with established players like Boston Scientific ( BSX - Analyst Report ) and Angiodynamics ( ANGO - Analyst Report ) in the thermal ablation market.

The MTX-180 has been specifically targeted at the growing interventional oncology market with worldwide revenues in excess of $200 million in 2009. This market has been forecasted to grow to nearly $500 million by 2015, offering a significant opportunity for BSD Medical.