CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Atrium Health lung experts now have two new options to diagnose lung cancer, including an advanced lung screening software and a minimally invasive robot.


What You Need To Know

  • According to the American Lung Association, lung cancer is the most deadly cancer

  • If it is detected early, it can reduce the chance of death by up to 20%

  • Atrium Health has a new software and technology that can help determine if the patient has other cancers

Neil Brunk likes to spend his free time in his woodshop. It helps him decompress and forget about some of the health issues he is facing. At the age of 71, he has both prostate cancer and lymphoma. The hits kept coming when doctors found a spot on his lung.

“At this stage in my life, I am game for anything," Brunk said. “It is what it is.”

In order to find out if he had lung cancer, doctors had to do a biopsy.

Dr. Jaspal Singh is a pulmonologist at Levine Cancer Institute. He said this type of biopsy would normally be very invasive, but thanks to a new software and a robot named “Gus,” it wasn’t.

“Neil had a spot in his lung that was traditionally a very hard area to get, and it is so hard to get by traditional tools, that many places would require him to have open surgery,” Singh said.

Instead, the robot was able to use an extremely small catheter to gather tissue for the biopsy. Brunk said the procedure didn’t take very long, and he was home the same day. The next day he was back at work.

“There was no irritation whatsoever,” Brunk said. “It was just nothing really.”

Not only was the procedure less invasive, but Singh said without it, the outcomes could have been different.

“We probably would have gotten the wrong diagnosis,” Singh said. “We had enough tissue to determine that this biopsy nodule was different from what we expected it to be.”

Doctors determined Brunk doesn’t have lung cancer, but rather his prostate cancer spread into his lung. It’s still not good news, but Brunk is happy that at least it’s the right diagnosis. 

“I remember it used to be ... if you got cancer, you are going to die soon,” Brunk said. “Now, they just send you on your way.”

A key part of this new technology is also the new screening software that is used before the biopsy.

Atrium Health Pulmonologist Dr. John Doty said the software helps analyze CT scans for any abnormalities.

“So, a patient might have a CT scan of the abdomen, let’s say we think they have a kidney stone, and you find a nodule in the right lower lobe,” Doty said. “Our software would pick that up.”

When a scan is alerted as needing more attention, the patient is then referred to a pulmonologist for additional review. Doty said this process is an effective way to track all potential cases of possible lung disease or cancer and help diagnose it earlier.