Trumbull Regional Medical Center’s new GPS-like technology helps detect lung cancer
Doctors can access nodules, resulting in earlier lung cancer detection
WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) – A new piece of medical technology is available in the Valley to help detect lung cancer in its early stages.
Doctors are looking for real-time results and this electromagnetic system, called the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System, helps them get it.
The airways are complex, so the machine makes a GPS map route to the lungs. Doctors will see purple if they’re too far away and green if they’re headed closer to the destination.
“The machine prepare for us a special kind of mapping and we follow that route to take us directly to the spot we want to biopsy,” said Dr. Manuel Bautista, medical director of Critical Care at Trumbull Regional Medical Center.
They can access nodules, resulting in earlier lung cancer detection.
“The CT lung screen has proven to decrease lung cancer deaths in high-risk patients by 20 percent since they started doing it,” said oncology coordinator Luana Andamasaris.
The system is minimally invasive.
Trumbull Regional Medical Center offers the lung cancer screening in Warren and Cortland.
A person age 50 to 80 who has smoked for 20 pack-years but has no symptoms of lung cancer may be recommended for annual lung cancer screening.
Gloss