Hoag hopes to turn the tables on
lung cancer by becoming one of select hospitals in the nation, and the first in Southern
California, to adopt the
Ion robot-assisted bronchoscopy, a technology that drastically improves accuracy and precision of lung
cancer biopsy, while also providing an improved patient experience.
The Ion robotic-assisted bronchoscopy is the newest technology available for
lung cancer diagnosis and staging, and now at Hoag thanks to philanthropy. “The current
approaches to lung cancer diagnosis have some limitations that the new
Ion technology can better address, such as the ability to reach peripheral
lung nodules. Nearly 70 percent of lung nodules are detected in the outside
lung periphery. This new technology provides greater stability to guide
a catheter to these outer nodules, paired with superior navigation. I
can view my entire pathway to the nodule as I guide the catheter to it,” said
Daryl Pearlstein, M.D., program director for lung cancer at
Hoag Family Cancer Institute and a board-certified, subspecialty-trained thoracic surgeon.
During an Ion bronchoscopy, a camera leads the catheter to the nodule,
remaining steady and adjusting with the patient’s breath. And because
it uses robotic technology, rather than a human, to hold in place, the
new technology allows the guiding catheter to remain stable and more still.
In addition to improving access to nodules through stability and navigation,
the adoption of this new technology also means an improved experience
for patients. “If we could not reach the detected nodule, patients
would have to come back for further imaging and biopsy,” continued
Dr. Pearlstein. “Other approaches to obtaining a biopsy could also
result in a collapsed lung. Utilizing Ion, we enter a patient’s
lung in a minimally-invasive fashion, through their mouth into their bronchial
tubes.”
Pearlstein also predicts that the Ion will play a role in treating lung
cancer, paving the way for a day when many of the estimated 800 lung cancer
patients who come to Hoag each year receive diagnosis, staging and
treatment all in one office visit.
“Once you detect lung cancer, the traditional treatment involves
removing the entire lobe,” he said. “This technology allows
us to mark the nodule with a florescent dye, so we can more easily remove
just the segment of the lung that has cancer. To put it in terms of
breast cancer, it’s like the difference between doing a
lumpectomy, rather than a
mastectomy.”
Lung cancer is the second-most common cancer in the U.S. and among the
deadliest. Yet, when detected early, lung cancers can be very treatable.
“In the past, lung cancers were diagnosed at an advance stage, when
the prognosis was poor,” Pearlstein said. “Now high-risk individuals
are more likely to receive annual CT scans, so more are being successfully
treated for lung cancers at earlier stages. Unfortunately, there is still
often a two- to three-month delay between when a nodule is noticed on
a CT scan and when a diagnosis and determination of a cancer’s stage
could be made.”
This new technology promises to reduce that time considerably, improving
patients’ prognosis and quality of life.
“Hoag has all the latest treatment modalities for lung cancer: targeted
chemotherapy,
advanced clinical trials,
Cyberknife, robot-assisted surgery. But you can’t treat a tumor until you have
a diagnosis and staging,” Pearlstein said. “This technology
will allow us to compress the time between detecting a nodule and getting
treated. This is such a benefit to the patients.”
While that day is still off in the future, Pearlstein noted that the investment
the philanthropic community has made in Hoag brings patients and their
families closer to more effective, efficient lung cancer care. Only one
other hospital in California has this technology, and few in the nation
have the community support that has allowed Hoag to make these types of advances.
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