OLOL doctors show robotic-assisted system for lung biopsies

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Baton Rouge doctors said lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States in men and women. Louisiana reports one of the highest rates of lung cancer.

Dr. Abdulla Majid-Moosa, a pulmonologist at Our Lady of the Lake, walked us through the robotic-assisted ION system. It’s a platform for minimally invasive lung biopsy procedures.

Doctors said about 237,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed this year. Annual lung cancer screenings can improve a patient’s cancer survival rate, especially for people most at risk.

“If you’re eligible for screening, get a screening CT because through screening we can find these lung cancers at their earliest stages when these nodules are very small and what that would mean for a patient undergoing a procedure like this where we’re able to perform a biopsy and if we find a lung cancer at the earliest stages, I as a surgeon can perform surgery on that lung nodule,” said Dr. Emily Cassidy, a Thoracic Surgeon at Our Lady of the Lake.

Cassidy said oftentimes this is all a patient will need. No chemotherapy or radiation therapy. They’ve performed more than 150 procedures so far.

“Louisiana has a long way to go in terms of reaching national benchmarks for lung cancer care so the first thing that I ask people to do is to get out get screened if you’re eligible,” said Dr. Abdulla Majid-Moosa.

People eligible for these operations include people 50 to 80 years old who are either currently smoking or are former smokers who have quit within the past 15 years.

Patients are eligible through insurance to get an annual CT scan so they can detect lung cancer cells at the earlier possible stage.

If you believe you are eligible, you can call this number: 225-765-6565.

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