Video|The purpose of the robot is to make the doctor’s work smoother and speed up the accurate diagnosis of cancer patients.
in California In the United States, a robot with the latest technology was put into use on Friday, which helps doctors in bronchoscopy, i.e. viewing the bronchial tubes.
The robot was adopted by a local medical center in Burlingame. There, the robot is supposed to streamline doctors’ work, help them make more accurate diagnoses faster and take samples from tumors in difficult places.
In particular, the robot is considered to speed up the diagnosis of patients who have been found to have worrisome signs during the screening, such as indications of a lump. The robot allows doctors to better locate difficult-to-place nodules for biopsy.
For most cancers, patients’ prognosis can be better the earlier the cancer is found.
A robot doctors are able to navigate the lungs based on a virtual map. They see a real-time view of the lungs and can watch as the catheter travels down the breathing tubes. The robot has been developed to be careful: it watches out for the walls inside the person and helps doctors safely take the sample.
The virtual map has been made based on the CT scan taken during the screening. CT imaging, i.e. computed tomography, is one of the most important imaging methods for detecting cancer.
American Ph.D Alexander Zider tells Reuters on Friday that he tested the robot on three patients.
He hopes that the new robot will be used more widely in the future and that it will become part of the lung cancer diagnosis process. He hopes the robot will especially help patients who experience anxiety while waiting for a more accurate diagnosis.
“Nodules can cause a lot of anxiety for patients,” he tells Reuters.
According to Reuters, about one in five cancer deaths in the United States is due to lung cancer. In Finland, lung cancer is among the three most common cancers in both women and men, he says On the Cancer Organizations website. According to the website, it is possible to treat localized lung cancer curatively, but the prognosis for widespread lung cancer is generally poor in Finland.