Earlier Lung Cancer Detection at TMH Saves Lives
November 12, 2024
By: Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare
Categories: Cancer, Surgery, Healthy Living
Tags: Lung Cancer, Robotic Surgery, Monarch
Lung cancer claims more than 125,000 lives in the United States each year, which equals as many as breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer deaths combined. The disease, which is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S., is particularly deadly because only 16% of cases are detected early, and symptoms often don’t appear until the later stages of the disease. This unfortunate statistic is why lung cancer screening for current and former smokers is vitally important.
Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines
The United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends routine lung cancer screening for men and women who:
- Are 50-80 years old; and
- Are current smokers or have quit smoking within the past 15 years; and
- Have at least a 20-year pack history of smoking – meaning an average of a pack per day for 20 years – or about 7,300 packs of cigarettes.
Detecting & Treating Lung Cancer
Early detection is critical because there is a 61% survival rate when lung cancer is diagnosed and treated in earlier stages. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) offers two solutions to help find and treat lung cancer early.
The Thoracic Oncology Clinic at the Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center is the region’s only multidisciplinary lung cancer clinic, bringing together multiple cancer specialists under one roof to review each lung cancer case referred to the Cancer Center. These specialists work together to create an individualized treatment plan for each patient, with all the services available through TMH.
Implemented in March 2023, TMH’s MONARCH™ Robotic Bronchoscopy Platform helps TMH doctors find and diagnose lung cancer earlier than ever.
The MONARCH™ Platform has significantly impacted the Big Bend during its first 18 months of use. To date, nearly 250 patients with suspected lung cancer – an average of about 12.5 cases per month – have benefitted from this technology.
MONARCH™ Makes a Difference
A bronchoscopy is an endoscopic procedure used to visually find, biopsy and confirm suspected cases of lung cancer in patients with positive results from low-dose CT scans used for lung cancer screening. For these patients with suspected cases, the MONARCH™ Platform is a game-changer. According to the manufacturer, this robotic technology lowers the diagnostic threshold by as much as 15% compared to traditional bronchoscopy, allowing physicians to locate lung lesions more efficiently. As a result, patients can receive a quicker diagnosis and begin treatment sooner at TMH.
Additionally, for physicians, MONARCH™ means no more long periods of time holding both arms over patients using a traditional bronchoscope. Instead, the physicians use what resembles a video game controller to control the robot’s catheter, allowing it to make more precise movements through the lung’s passages and detect nodes that are small, or in hard-to-reach areas. While it’s estimated that traditional bronchoscopes can reach about 20 to 30% of the lungs, a robotic bronchoscope can reach 95% or more.
Giving Lung Cancer Patients New Hope
Carlos Campo, MD, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at TMH, says the advent of a nationally standardized lung screening program, such as the guidelines provided by the USPSTF, and robotic technology have vastly improved outcomes in patients with lung cancer.
“When you’re able to diagnose lung cancer at an earlier stage using a tool like Monarch, it can drastically increase someone’s chances of survival,” Dr. Campo says. “Before having a good lung cancer screening program, we were finding lung cancer at later stages more often. Now we’re able to be more proactive about the disease -- and with tools like Monarch and our Thoracic Oncology Clinic at the Cancer Center, we’re able to give these patients more hope than ever before.”
While Dr. Campo and Alberto Fernandez, MD, were two of the first TMH pulmonologists to train on MONARCH™ leading up to its launch in early 2023, six more doctors have begun performing procedures with the technology at the hospital. Additionally, there’s potential in the future to use other technology in tandem with MONARCH™.
“We’re in the process of identifying additional tools and technologies that may work together with our Monarch Platform to provide patients with the most efficient lung cancer care possible,” Dr. Campo said.
MONARCH™ isn’t just a vital tool for patients in Tallahassee. It serves an entire region across a large part of Florida’s Big Bend, Panhandle and into South Georgia and Alabama, meaning patients in rural north Florida and South Georgia have access to some of the most advanced lung cancer detection technology in the region.
With Tallahassee Memorial’s recent expansion of services into the Panama City Beach area, including pulmonology services, some patients from communities west of the Big Bend are also benefiting from MONARCH™.
“It’s extremely exciting that these tools and resources we have at TMH are helping provide lung cancer care not just to patients in Tallahassee, but throughout our entire region,” Dr. Campo said.
To learn more about MONARCH™ Robotic Bronchoscopy at TMH, visit TMH.ORG/Monarch.
