UofL Health first in Kentucky to use new 'Monarch' technology for detecting lung cancer
Thousands of people die every year from lung cancer and Kentucky is at the top of the list for the number of people with the disease.
Now, doctors are hoping new technology at UoL Health Jewish Hospital will help change those statistics and save lives. The new technology is called the Monarch.
"So the Monarch is a robotic navigational bronchoscopy," said Dr. Matthew Black, UofL Health Jewish Hospital.
Black describes it as a lighted camera allowing surgeons to see a patient's airway and lungs. UofL Health Jewish Hospital is the first in Kentucky to use it to help detect lung cancer earlier.
Black, a thoracic surgeon, performed the first procedure in November.
"This technology allows us to get further into the peripheral lung which is where most lung cancers start and by utilizing this technology we can hopefully provide diagnostic yield earlier, provide surgery earlier meaning earlier stage and better potential for cure," Black said.
Black said the Monarch is more precise and increases accurate lung cancer diagnosis to 90%.
"Our goal is to find smaller nodules and be able to diagnose them with a confirmatory test so that we can take them out and treat them surgically," he said. "As you know with most cancers, any time we find things sooner rather than later there's a better chance of being cured from that disease."
Black also said this technology offers more options for diagnosing lung cancer in patients who may not be candidates for certain treatments or surgeries.
"It can be utilized in everyone except for patients that have pacemakers and defibrillator -- because of the electromagnetic field it could interfere with those -- so it's really far reaching as far as who can be a candidate for being biopsies with the monarch," Black said.
The Monarch is not used to treat cancer, but is used to confirm or rule out the suspicion of lung cancer.