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Electronic navigation bronchoscope: How to break through the limitations of traditional examinations and accurately locate lung lesions?
In modern medicine, early detection of lung disease is crucial to the patient's survival rate. The birth of electronic navigation bronchoscope technology is to overcome the various limitations of traditional bronchoscopes during the examination process. The technology combines electromagnetic navigation with three-dimensional image reconstruction, providing doctors with a new way to accurately locate lung lesions.
What is an electronically navigated bronchoscope?
Electronic navigation bronchoscopy (ENB) is a medical procedure that uses electromagnetic technology to guide an endoscopic tool or catheter through the bronchial pathways of the lungs. Using recent computed tomography (CT) data, physicians are able to precisely locate lesions on a three-dimensional virtual bronchial map for biopsy, lymph node staging, implantation of radiation therapy markers, or guidance of brachytherapy.
System composition
The ENB system consists of four basic components:
- A disposable working channel, beyond the reach of the bronchoscope, provides access for subsequent diagnosis and treatment.
- A disposable guide catheter with a position sensor on the end and 360-degree steering capability.
- Software that provides doctors with a view of the lungs for planning and navigation, combined with CT images.
- Hardware, including computers, monitors, and electromagnetic boards.
Overview of Inspection Process
The process of electronic navigation bronchoscopy can be divided into the planning stage and the navigation stage.
During the planning phase, the doctor loads the patient's CT scan, creates a three-dimensional image of the patient's airway, and marks the target locations and their passages. During the navigation phase, doctors use real-time guidance to navigate to the target location in the lungs based on previous plans.
History
According to the Aetna Clinical Policy Bulletin, in 2004, the U.S. FDA approved Medtronic's superDimension/Bronchus system through the 510(k) procedure. The system is designed to address the clinical problem of small lesions and is currently an alternative to traditional open surgical biopsy and transthoracic radiofrequency marker implantation.
Field use and prospective research
Despite the continuous advancement of medical detection technology, lung cancer is still the disease with the highest cancer mortality rate in the world, and the demand for early diagnosis and treatment is becoming more urgent. Data shows that the ten-year survival rate for early lung cancer is as high as 88%. In contrast, the five-year survival rate for advanced lung cancer is only 16%.
In many studies, the success rate of using Medtronic's superDimension system to diagnose peripheral lung lesions was as high as 69% to 86%.
Recent studies have shown that ENB technology can safely sample peripheral lesions with standard bronchial tools and has a high diagnostic yield. The results showed that the target sampling rate of lesions reached 80.4% in all examinations. Similar research reported in the European Respiratory Journal showed that the use of ENB without additional X-ray guidance can safely and efficiently diagnose peripheral lung nodules.
Future Outlook
Virtual bronchoscopy remains an active topic in basic engineering research. The Bio-EM research group at University College Cork is developing a low-cost tracking system and, in collaboration with the Surgical Planning Laboratory at Harvard Medical School, is working towards the world’s first open-source virtual bronchoscopy module in the 3DSlicer environment.
The advancement of electronic navigation bronchoscopes has not only made the diagnosis of early lung cancer more accurate, but also paved the way for the diversification of treatment methods.
As medical technology changes rapidly today, what are your thoughts on the application prospects of electronic navigation bronchoscopes and their impact on lung cancer diagnosis?
