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Boston hospital offers one-visit procedure to treat lung cancer

Boston hospital pioneers new, easier lung cancer treatment
Boston hospital pioneers new, easier lung cancer treatment 02:06

BOSTON - Patients with lung nodules often have to undergo several procedures including biopsy and multiple surgeries, but a Boston hospital is offering a new approach that allows patients to get diagnosed and treated in one trip to the operating room.

A "tiny spot" on the lung

Former Boston College professor David McMenamin began smoking at a time when many young men did.

"I started on Saturday nights in high school.  And then in college, I became a regular smoker, and smoking ever since," said McMenamin.

The habit finally caught up with the 72-year-old when his doctor told him she found a "tiny spot" on his lung during a screening CAT scan.

Speaking with his doctor, "I said to her, 'I'm focused on the word tiny.' And she said, 'I'm focused on the word spot.'"

Lung cancer can be cured

Lung cancer kills more people in this country than any other cancer, but if it's caught in the very early stages, it can be cured.  

McMenamin's lung cancer was so small, that removing it with traditional surgery would be challenging, but Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston offered him a new option.

"Especially for these early-stage cancers, the goal of surgery is a cure," said interventional pulmonologist Dr. Kai Swenson of BIDMC. 

A new procedure for lung cancer

Guiding a robot with remote controls, a lung specialist inserts a scope through the patient's mouth down into the affected lung and injects dye into the tumor -- making it more visible for the surgeon -- who then uses another remote-controlled robot to cut the tumor out with remarkable precision, offering patients a biopsy, diagnosis, removal and treatment of a lung nodule in one trip to the operating room.

"That helps preserve the patient's quality of life and breathing function and also gives us the same cancer outcomes," said thoracic surgeon Dr. Jennifer Wilson of BIDMC.

McMenamin's surgery was a success. So much so, he struggles to consider himself a survivor of the disease. "I said to Dr. Wilson, 'Does this mean that I'm like a cancer survivor?'  And she said, 'Yes, a title you should wear proudly.'  And I said, 'I'm not so sure because all the people I think of as survivors suffered, and I didn't have any suffering.'" 

And that's the ultimate goal.

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