September 27, 2016 WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today Augmenix, Inc. (http://www.spaceoar.com/), a medical technology company that develops, manufactures, and sells proprietary absorbable hydrogels that separate and protect organs at risk during prostate radiotherapy, announced the 3-year results from the SpaceOAR System Prostate Cancer US Pivotal Clinical Trial. These results were presented at the 2016 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting in Boston, MA as a Late Breaking Abstract, an honor reserved for highly significant and timely findings in clinical oncology, radiobiology or medical physics. Entitled “Continued Benefit to Rectal Separation for Prostate RT: Final Results of a Phase III Trial”, the study results presented by Daniel Hamstra, MD, PhD, a radiation oncologist at Texas Oncology in Irving, TX demonstrated significantly lower rectal toxicity and higher patient quality of life (QOL) scores when the SpaceOAR System was applied prior to radiotherapy as compared to the trial control patients.

The leading side effects of prostate cancer radiotherapy are collectively known as “rectal toxicity” (diarrhea, rectal bleeding, urgency, pain, etc.), which results from unintended radiation injury to the rectum (the Organ At Risk, OAR). These complications can last for years, significantly impacting QOL. The SpaceOAR System was developed to push the rectum away from the high dose region during treatment, and then to be completely absorbed by the body after radiotherapy is complete.

The prospective, randomized, multi-center, patient-blinded clinical trial evaluated rectal and urinary toxicity and QOL impact on prostate radiotherapy patients treated either with SpaceOAR hydrogel, or with no hydrogel (Controls). Previously published initial study results demonstrated spacer safety, and a significant 74% reduction in the volume of rectum receiving 70 Gray radiation at 15 months. Presented today were the patient results three years after the start of prostate radiotherapy.
Following radiotherapy through 3 years no SpaceOAR patients (0%) experienced grade 2 or worse late rectal toxicity, compared to 5.7% in the Control patients (p=0.012). Additionally, at 3 years the average SpaceOAR patient bowel QOL was slightly better than before radiotherapy (+0.48 points), while the Control patients QOL had significantly declined (-5.3 points, p=0.05). The percent of men with significant 10+ declines in bowel QOL at 3 years was 20.5% and 5.4% in the Control and SpaceOAR groups (p=0.02), respectively. Unexpectedly, the SpaceOAR patients also showed benefits in urinary complications and QOL, relative to Controls. In the three years after radiotherapy, grade 1 urinary incontinence was experienced in 19.6% and 4.3% of the Control and SpaceOAR patients, respectively (p=0.003). Additionally, like bowel QOL, at 3 years the average SpaceOAR patient urinary QOL was slightly better than before radiotherapy (+0.6 points), while the Control patient QOL had declined (-3.3 points, p=0.05).

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