Cancer diagnostics company, Pacific Edge (NZX: PEB), advises that Cxbladder has been included in the latest version of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines for Bladder Cancer in the USA.

This is a significant achievement with the NCCN Guidelines widely recognised and used as the standard for clinical policy and practice in oncology by clinicians and payors in the USA.

The new guidelines update, which was issued on 10 July 2019, state that the evaluation of urinary urothelial tumor markers (Cxbladder by direct reference) may be considered during surveillance of high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The NCCN Bladder Cancer Panel considers this a category 2B recommendation, which means there is NCCN consensus that the use of Cxbladder as a clinical intervention is appropriate. This follows on from Cxbladder’s inclusion in clinical guidelines by several New Zealand public healthcare providers in the last year.

To be considered for review and inclusion in the NCCN guidelines for bladder cancer requires an extensive portfolio of clinical evidence, a track record of clinical use, and broad adoption by physicians.

This is an important milestone for Pacific Edge’s commercial journey in the USA, says CEO, David Darling, and comes on the back of 10 years of successful clinical evidence and commercial development.

“Over the preceding years many of our customers in the USA have been hampered in their commercial use of Cxbladder while the Cxbladder technology has not been specifically included in the guideline recommendations. Inclusion in the NCCN Bladder Cancer guidelines is a major commercial milestone for the Company in the USA and will be of significant value as we progress our commercial discussions with our many urologist customers including the large healthcare organisations we are targeting.”