Robotic bronchoscopy helping detect lung cancer at Memorial Hospital

Memorial Hospital is the first in Mississippi to acquire a new piece of technology that will help detect lung cancer at its earliest stages.

Two years ago, Memorial Hospital acquired the Monarch Platform which is a robotic technology that allows physicians to go deeper into a patient and perform a bronchoscopy. With this advancement in technology, it is allowing physicians to detect one of the most common types of cancer. Pulmonologist Dr. Bobby Tullos said, “With the advent of biotic bronchoscopy we have been and continue to go deep into the lungs and sometimes direct visualization of the abnormality seen on a CT scan as small as eight millimeters which before has just been unheard of.”

The doctors guide the robotic camera throughout the patient’s airways to locate nodules that were hard to reach before this technology. Pulmonologist Dr. Summer Allen said, “The robotic bronchoscope is a tube with a camera on the end of it and it has a light and I take the scope and I go into the patient’s lung and it uses a navigational system to guide me to where this small little tumor is or this small nodule.”

According to the American Lung Association, the rate of new lung cancer cases in Mississippi is significantly higher than the national average. Physicians believe with this new form of technology it will help with early detections and treatment. “This has really changed our fight against lung cancer. It has changed how we approach patients with nodules in the lungs and it has also helped us hopefully improve the survival of lung cancer.”

Dr. Tullos said, “We now have one more tool in our arsenal to potentially diagnose lung cancer and its earliest stages to potentially seek after a cure.”

To learn more about the robotic bronchoscopy at Memorial visit Gulfportmemorial.com.