From WCIO 2011- Highly Relevant Presentation

You might have already seen this presentation on my blog (Under RFA in Current Practice --> Recurrence Following RFA) and I won't do too much commenting here. For the purpose of establishing what the control arm in the HEAT trial might look like and why, I think you might find this presentation that was made earlier this year at WCIO quite useful. Interestingly enough, Cleveland Clinic was one of the HEAT trial sites. Note that this review only looks at colorectal liver mets (Celsion plans to initiate a ~90 patient, randomized PII trial shortly in colorectal liver mets). I would submit, however, that recurrence patterns are quite similar between HCC and colorectal liver mets. Lastly, this study was based off of laparoscopic RFA entirely, and it is yet to be known what the actual breakdown of percutaneous vs laparoscopic vs open-surgical RFA is for the HEAT trial. Some evidence suggests greater effectiveness of laparoscopic and open-surgical RFA for larger lesions. (UPDATE: It turns out management stated at the annual shareholder's meeting that ~80% of patients in the HEAT trial received percutaneous RFA)

• Slide 10 - Shows a very strong relationship between lesion size and recurrence. As you might know, the HEAT study is looking at lesions >3cm and <7cm. 
• Slide 12 - Articulates, essentially, what Thermodox is designed to do, which is to enhance the area of ablation.