Zila's OraScreen and OralScan's OralCDx Are Complementary For Oral Cancer Diagnosis

LONDON (PROTEXT) - Zila Europe, a division of Zila, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZILA), international provider of healthcare products for dental/medical professionals and consumers, and marketer of the OraScreen(TM) oral cancer detection product, advises dental professionals that the new OralCDx(R) computer-assisted brush biopsy analysis technology complements the use of OraScreen in promoting early detection, diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer. (The OraScreen product is marketed as OraTest(R) in countries other than the UK and Australia.) OralCDx, a service of OralScan(TM) Laboratories of Suffern, New York, is the subject of a favorable clinical study report in the October issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. "The two technologies -- OraScreen and OralCDx -- are highly compatible," said OralScan Medical Director Drore Eisen, DDS, MD. "The primary purpose of the OraScreen product is to identify oral abnormalities that may have been overlooked in a visual oral cancer examination. Once these abnormalities are highlighted by OraScreen, the minimally invasive OralCDx biopsy procedure may be used to test these lesions, without anesthesia, to definitively determine their significance. Thus, OralCDx is highly complementary to the primary function of Zila's OraScreen product." The OraScreen product uses the metachromatic stain Zila(R) Tolonium Chloride (a patented pharmaceutical grade toluidine blue formulation) to help clinicians detect suspicious lesions, choose optimum sites for biopsy, and define margins for surgery. Once attention is drawn to a suspicious lesion, a tissue sample can be collected using a brush biopsy (facilitated by materials included in the OralCDx biopsy kit), and the sample is sent to the OralScan laboratory for computer-assisted analysis; a report is then issued to the clinician. The OralCDx computer was designed to be compatible with oral lesion tissue samples stained with toluidine blue. Use of the OraScreen product reduces randomized tissue sampling, increasing the likelihood of providing a biopsy sample containing malignant cells when such cells are present in the oral cavity. Adrian Webber, General Manager of Zila Europe, added, "The OraScreen procedure helps overcome a persistent problem: you can't biopsy something that isn't seen. If dentists first use the OraScreen toluidine blue rinse procedure, research and experience indicate that a subsequent biopsy is more likely to include earlier stage cancerous or pre-cancerous cells. The early- detection capability of the OraScreen product combined with the accuracy of the OralCDx computer-aided laboratory analysis could yield significantly improved patient care." The OraTest product is now available or approved in 14 countries; additional regulatory approvals and distribution agreements are being pursued in many countries worldwide. Additional OraTest product marketing launches are planned in Europe and the Middle East in the coming months. OralCDx is currently available in the U.S. and preparations are underway to introduce it in the UK by the end of 1999. This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based largely on Zila's expectations or forecasts of future events, can be affected by inaccurate assumptions and are subject to various business risks and known and unknown uncertainties, a number of which are beyond the Company's control. These include possible political, economic or contractual complications involved in foreign business dealings. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein. A wide variety of factors could cause or contribute to such differences and could adversely impact revenues, profitability, cash flows and capital needs. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements contained in this document will, in fact, transpire or prove to be accurate. For a more detailed description of these and other cautionary factors that may affect Zila's future results, please refer to Zila's annual report on Form 10-K for its fiscal year ended July 31, 1998, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ots Original Text Service: Zila Europe Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Adrian Webber, GM of Zila Europe, 01722 412312 Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug "PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to be published under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial service providing distribution of press releases from clients, who are identified in the text of Protext reports and who bear full responsibility for their contents. PROTEXT