Robotic Assisted Lung Biopsy in Paducah, KY
Robot-Assisted Lung Biopsy Health Talk Transcript:
Keith Kelly, MD, Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
Baptist Health Paducah
Marilyn Tucker, Paducah, Kentucky
Keith Kelly, MD:
Kentucky has one of the highest rates of lung cancer in the entire country. The other problem we have in Kentucky is that often it is diagnosed at a late stage, where there's not as much we can do about it as compared to if we were to find [it] at an earlier stage.
Marilyn Tucker:
About six or seven years ago, I had pneumonia. They ran all the normal tests, and they found a spot on my lung, and then it started growing.
Keith Kelly, MD:
We frequently find patients have a small spot that's identified on a CT scan done for screening purposes. Nowadays, we have the benefit of a new technology called robotic navigational bronchoscopy, which is a technology that allows us to run a very small bronchoscope through the patient's airways out to the lesion with guidance, much like GPS in a car. We can biopsy things that are as small as five millimeters across. Whereas 10 years ago, you would not have even been able to see that on a CT scan in the first place.
Marilyn Tucker:
I find doctors and I trust them. Whatever they asked me to do, that's what I'm willing to do. If they had told me I had to go to Memphis or Nashville or somewhere, I probably would have put it off. If the technology is here, the doctors are here, and I can do it, I would say trust in them and just stay here and have it done. I would always start here first.
