Dr. Stollenwerk on the Effect of Robotic Bronchoscopy on Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Nicholas Stollenwerk, MD, health sciences clinical professor, Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the real-world effects of robotic-assisted bronchoscopy (RAB) on diagnosis and treatment for patients with lung cancer.

Many promising developments in surgical technology are found to be ineffective when applied in clinical practice, but RAB is proving beneficial in practice, Stollenwerk states. This technique enables clinicians to obtain a higher yield of tumor tissue, promoting the likelihood and accuracy of diagnosis.

Smaller tumor cell samples are no longer adequate for comprehensive molecular diagnosis in patients with early- stage lung cancer, and high-volume tissue samples are essential for successful clinical trials. Increasing the volume and availability of extracted tissue through RAB also allows clinicians to stage and diagnose patients concurrently, providing them with more rapid and complete results.