High-tech lung probe helps battle cancer - Medical News

Today, lung cancer is often diagnosed using a procedure called a bronchoscopy. Doctors visually inspect lung tissue with a camera-tipped probe inserted through a patient's mouth....

Patients rarely exhibit symptoms until tumors grow large enough to affect their respiratory systems – or until traditional X-rays can detect them. Small, soft tissue lesions in the lungs are virtually invisible.

While CT scans have the ability to show some of the tiniest lung lesions, they are usually too expensive or aren't covered by health insurance....

The technology Di Perna uses relies on electromagnetic sensors that allow a flexible probe to follow digital "breadcrumbs" to reach suspicious tissue....

Like a traditional bronchoscopy, the scope is inserted through a patient's mouth and into the lungs. Real-time images from an attached camera lens help the surgeon navigate the lungs' larger pathways.

As the probe goes deeper into areas inaccessible by the lens, the surgeon uses a computer-generated image of the lungs displayed on a nearby monitor to guide a thinner probe through the organ's narrower airways. The software produces digital markers, seen on the monitor, that the surgeon follows until the suspected tumor is reached.

The probe then collects a tissue sample for analysis.

Either way this is good news for those with lung issues...early detection helps...

But that has got to be 'uncomfortable' in the meantime...