MAaGI Medical Debuts 'i' Series Cancer Therapy Converting 'Cold' Tumors to 'Hot' Ones

In mid-June, more than a thousand interventional radiologists and oncologists gathered in Suzhou for the 20th annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology. The conference, held June 11 to 14 at the Suzhou International Expo Centre and chaired by Academician Gao-Jun Teng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, drew specialists from across the world. Among the presentations and exhibits, one technology commanded sustained attention: MAaGI Medical's newly unveiled "i" Series multimodal tumor therapy system, a platform designed to do something oncologists have long struggled with—make immunotherapy-resistant tumors responsive to immune attack.

The core innovation is deceptively elegant. Solid tumors like those in the liver and pancreas often exist in what researchers call an immune-cold state: the tumor microenvironment actively suppresses the body's natural cancer-fighting cells. MAaGI Medical's system works by rapidly alternating between cryogenic freezing and radiofrequency heating, precisely controlled to kill tumor cells while simultaneously rupturing them in a way that releases their antigens into the surrounding tissue. The effect is to convert a cold tumor into a hot one—a tumor that now looks like an invader to the immune system and becomes susceptible to immunotherapy drugs that were previously ineffective. The technology has already secured market approval through China's special review pathway for innovative medical devices.

The clinical evidence backing this approach has begun to accumulate in prestigious venues. Research published on the cover of the journal Theranostics documented the mechanism at work: the treatment significantly extended progression-free survival in patients with advanced liver cancer. The same study identified a specific subset of immune cells—CX3CR1⁺GPR56⁺ tumor-responsive CD8⁺T cells—as the key players in generating lasting anti-tumor immunity. Critically, the expansion of these cells after treatment correlated directly with how long patients survived without disease progression. More recently, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in 2026, MAaGI Medical presented data from pancreatic cancer patients. Those who received the multimodal therapy followed by immunotherapy showed an eight-month improvement in overall survival compared to patients treated with conventional chemotherapy alone—a substantial gain for a disease historically resistant to treatment.

The "i" Series platform represents a second-order innovation layered atop the core therapy. Rather than relying on a surgeon's experience and intuition, the system builds a digital model of each patient's tumor before treatment begins. It uses imaging fusion to plan the precise lesion, then during the procedure captures real-time data on tumor density, blood flow, and electrical impedance to continuously adjust the thermal dosage and monitor the temperature field. After treatment, it forecasts outcomes and assesses results. The effect is to move cancer treatment from an art form practiced by experienced hands to a standardized, data-driven procedure tailored to each individual's anatomy and biology.

Implementation has already begun across China. Supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's 2025 High-End Medical Equipment Promotion Program and the National Health Commission, the technology is now in use at more than ten leading hospitals, deployed across interventional radiology, hepatobiliary surgery, thoracic surgery, and oncology departments. The international medical community has taken notice. At the Suzhou conference, experts from the United Kingdom, France, and Japan offered detailed commentary. Professor Long Jiao from The Royal Marsden Hospital in London emphasized that the technology achieves both precise local tumor destruction and activation of systemic anti-tumor immunity—essentially creating an in-situ vaccine effect. Professor Li Wentao from Fudan University's Shanghai Cancer Center noted that by inducing anti-tumor immunity directly within the tumor, the approach reduces the risk of recurrence and metastasis, opening what he called a new pathway for interventional immunotherapy.

What emerges from the conference is a picture of a technology moving from laboratory proof-of-concept into clinical practice, with data accumulating in real patients. The challenge ahead is not whether the approach works in principle—that appears established—but whether it can be reliably deployed across different hospitals and patient populations, and whether the survival gains seen in early studies will hold as the technology reaches broader use. The next phase will be watching whether other cancer centers around the world adopt the system and whether the eight-month survival improvement in pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal malignancies, can be replicated and extended.