Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate in Australia but now, a groundbreaking medical machine could be the key to early detection.
It’s the only one of it’s kind in the country – a revolutionary robot called ‘ION’ – built in Brisbane and improving how biopsies are conducted, ultimately helping patients live longer.
Four years ago, 61-year-old Ruanda found a nodule on her lung but her road to a diagnosis wasn’t a walk in the park.
“My lung specialist then sent me for two normal bronchoscopies,” she told 9News.
“They couldn’t get enough tissue to actually make a proper diagnosis.”
The Brisbane grandmother with a family history of cancer, was told to watch and wait but when it comes to cancer, early detection is key.
“It was discovered it had actually doubled in size,” she said.
Months later, Ruanda found out she had non-smoking related lung cancer after it was detected by a groundbreaking robot at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH).
“It’s very much a game changer,” Dr David Fielding, RBWH Thoracic Physician said.
“The robot is a way of improving our precision and getting to these small spots, taking a biopsy and improving our knowledge of what it is.”
The ‘ION’ platform from Intuitive Surgical is ushering in a new era of robotic bronchoscopy.
“[It’ll] hopefully, increase the survival rate up to 60 or 70 per cent,” RBWH Interventional Bronchology Director Dr Farzad Bashirzadeh told 9News.
It works after a regular CAT scan is taken, then the computer maps out a virtual pathway through an individual’s lungs and directs doctors through the real airway to reach the biopsy site more efficiently.
More than 170 patients have already benefited from the revolutionary technology, with preliminary results showing the robot is twice as accurate as previous biopsy methods.
“We would do it in a similar way [previously] but with a bronchoscope that we hold with our hand,” Fielding explained.
“[But with] the robot, you just drive it with a trackball, like a video game, and it stays still.”
Ultimately by helping to remove human error, it reduces the risk of a lung collapse.
“On average [the old way] is about 25 per cent risk of pneumothorax, meaning collapsing lung,” Bashirzadeh said.
“But in this one it’s less than one per cent.”
Ruanda is grateful the technology helped catch her cancer at stage one and she’ll undergo surgery in the coming weeks.
“This is definitely gonna help people get the answer at the right time,” she said.
