GPS for the Lungs
Special Technology Locates Hard-to-Reach Tumors

The new superDimension i-Logic Electromagnetic Navigational Bronchoscopy system at Inova Fairfax Hospital helps doctors eliminate the guesswork associated with traditional bronchoscopy. It can accurately biopsy and diagnose tumors located anywhere within the lungs. “It gives us a very accurate way to biopsy these nodules, avoiding other potentially more complicated interventions and saving patients from undergoing unnecessary operations,” says Sandeep Khandhar, MD, Director of Thoracic Surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital, which received the technology this past summer. He along with Daniel Fortes, MD, use the system.

A traditional bronchoscopy involves a physician inserting a lighted scope through the patient’s airways and guiding it into the lungs. But a physician’s ability to see and locate a potentially cancerous nodule is lost after he or she navigates two or three generations of airway branches.

Thanks to electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy (ENB), physicians are able to “see” deep within the lungs using this technology. The i-Logic software system creates a three-dimensional map of the airways for them. They then can navigate a magnetic probe through the airways, through the traditional bronchoscope, to reach a nodule. “This is very similar to the GPS in your car, where it plots out a road for you and there’s a satellite that’s watching your progress in real-time, knowing where you are along that path,” Dr. Khandhar says.

“This technology enables physicians to reach a patient population for whom they previously really couldn’t do a lot,” notes Kären Solie, Senior Market Development Manager at superDimension. “It expands patient care options and provides another option for physicians to offer to certain patients who have compromised lung function and have indeterminate nodules in their lung that need either diagnosis, treatment or both,” she says.

The first time he used this system, which is available in more than 400 hospitals, Dr. Khandhar was able to accurately determine that a nodule within a patient’s lungs was infectious rather than cancerous and that her lung problems were the result of bacterial and mycobacterial infections. “In this case, an operation [to remove the nodule] would have absolutely been the wrong answer,” he says. “What she needed was intensive drug therapy with antibiotics. We saved this high-risk patient a more invasive procedure and all the potential complications that could have resulted from that operation.”

Breathe Easier
Find out more about Inova’s thoracic oncology program by clicking here.