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Empowering doctors to accurately image lung disease


Lung health has never been more of a priority in our world. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the incidence of life-threatening lung diseases had been rising. These diseases are difficult to diagnose, greatly increase health care costs, and reduce patients’ quality of life.

When you consider the facts about lung diseases, the picture becomes clear for more precise diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.Case: Nursing Expenses 37 million Large numbers of Americans with chronic lung disease, U.S. workers pay The cost of asthma treatment was $7 billion from 2011 to 2015, and the cost of COPD treatment was $5 billion.estimate 236,740 New cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2022, and 1 in 16 people will develop lung cancer in their lifetime.At the same time, there are more than 200 Interstitial lung disease (ILD), 55% of patients with ILD (interstitial lung disease) have received at least one misdiagnosedwhile 38% received two or more misdiagnoses before they were accurately diagnosed.

Lung cancer may appear as lung nodules in or near the airways of the lungs. Because 80% of lung lesions are located in the periphery of the lung, conventional bronchoscopy may not be effective in localizing potentially dangerous nodules. In addition, poor or limited access to the relevant tissue can lead to inaccurate biopsy results and may hinder the ability to monitor and treat nodules. To effectively manage the future state of lung disease, physicians need to be able to access lung nodules through tissue targeting, allowing them to see inside the nodule and assess the underlying disease state.

Cell imaging technology supports precision medicine

The most deadly and life-altering lung diseases often present with few, if any, early symptoms, so access to advanced diagnostics is a growing need across the healthcare landscape. The technique, known as real-time in vivo cellular activity, allows doctors to diagnose and monitor lung health more accurately and quickly, and to assess patients’ response to treatments in the body.

Confocal laser endoscopy (CLE) is a technique with many applications in pulmonology and lung health. Two proven CLE applications are needle-based confocal laser endoscopy (nCLE), used with manual and robotic-assisted bronchoscopy procedures for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary nodules, and probe-based confocal laser microscopy. Microendoscopy (pCLE) for the treatment and management of ILD, COPD and related diseases.

This imaging technique provides visibility into cellular activity, allowing physicians to assess areas of concern when routine disease screening returns ambiguous results. The unique ability to view cells in real time allows physicians to confidently classify areas of interest or concern. In the future, nCLE could allow physicians to monitor point-in-time responses that occur in the body during drug delivery to observe and understand causal responses and determine the best course of action for each patient. At the same time, nCLE allows clinicians to more precisely plan, intervene, and treat patients in image-guided procedures. Combined, these capabilities directly support the development of personalized, precision medicine for lung diseases.

Research recently published in journals Chest showed that the use of nCLE as a real-time guidance and detection tool for peripheral lung cancer is highly effective. also, Nature Communications Results of a groundbreaking study were recently published in the target lab It utilizes a new 510(k) customs clearance and research collaboration Among them, nCLE combined with cancer-targeted molecular imaging agents can detect cancer cells rapidly, with high sensitivity and specificity in real-time during biopsy.Other studies aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of nCLE in robotic and manual bronchoscopy include clear research, which is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson’s lung cancer program. It will evaluate the ability of Mauna Kea Technologies’ nCLE technology to accurately confirm needle placement for the diagnosis of peripheral pulmonary nodules, as well as the reproducibility of the use of nCLE across multiple facilities and the ability of nCLE to diagnose malignant versus non-malignant tumors.

In addition to exploring the integration of nCLE into bronchoscopy surgery, we are collaborating to establish and develop molecular image-guided lung cancer surgery.

New technologies such as nCLE and pCLE allow physicians to look at cells in unprecedented ways to understand cellular changes in lung tissue and lung nodules. Not only is this critical for accurately locating, assessing, and diagnosing changes in lung physiology, but this technology has the potential to revolutionize treatment—improving outcomes for patients and healthcare providers, and changing lives.

Photo: Mohammed Hanefa, Getty Images



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