Mercy Fairfield invests in technology to battle lung cancer
Nov. 23—Early cancer screenings can save lives, especially with lung cancer, as they cannot be seen nor felt.
And if someone is diagnosed with lung cancer, medical technology has advanced to treat the disease faster and more efficiently. Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital acquired in June the MONARCH robotic platform that aids pulmonologists in attacking cancer, which leads to more effective treatments.
Dr. Greg Colangelo, a pulmonologist with Mercy Fairfield, said they've tried for years to develop better techniques to diagnose lung cancer, and lung cancers are diagnosed earlier and as smaller nodules and lesions. However, the current technology of just the bronchoscopy only allows doctors to see so far into the lung.
Enter MONARCH, which is a robotic bronchoscope that allows surgeons "to advance a bronchoscope almost to the very edge of the lung with vision and with computer-guided assistance to help localize those smaller legions and produce a more accurate biopsy of the nodule," he said.
"For the most part, this gets you right where you need to be, and we've had some good successes and good outcomes," Colangelo said of the robotic surgical tool, which has been used just under a couple of dozen times.
Lung cancer is the second-most common cancer in both men and women in the United States, not counting skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Prostate cancer is more common in men, and breast cancer is more common in women.
The Society estimates that by the end of the year, there will be more than 238,000 new lung cancer cases and nearly 130,000 deaths, which is the leading cause of all cancer deaths in the US (about 1 in 5).
While it is a leading killer among both men and women, the American Society reports the number of new lung cancer cases continues to decrease, as are deaths. This is mostly attributed to more people either quitting smoking or not even starting, and advances in early detection and treatment.
Dr. Zolar Akhtar, a Mercy Fairfield pulmonologist, said early detection is important given that survivability increases when detected early, and encourages people to get screened as November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month.
"So the idea is to catch patients early, diagnose them early so we can have a treatment plan early and have them cured or remission," he said.
The MONARCH system works like the GPS system on one's cellphone. The destination is a lung nodule or lesion. Using a controller similar to a gaming system, surgeons have three views on a monitor: a three-dimensional virtual and actual view of the lung and a two-dimensional map. The map is key, Akhtar said, because, without the robotic-assisted tool, there would be a lot of trial and error in searching for the nodule or lesion.
"The airways (of the lung) are almost like a tree branch," he said. "The farther you go it splits and splits and split. And the farther out into the lung, it would be harder to get to the nodules without this system because you have exponential routes."
With just the camera, Akhtar said it would be "a very difficult time" finding the nodule or lesion in order to biopsy to determine if its cancer. The longer the procedure, the longer the patient would be under anesthesia, "and frankly, we may not be able to get to it" without the robotic tool.
"This gives us a good chance of having a biopsy, and we tell the patient we did get a sample, we visualized it, and if it turned out to be something else, that can put their mind at ease.," he said.
