Innovation within the Lung Cancer diagnostic and therapeutic space has vastly increased, enabling minimally invasive, precise techniques to obtain pathological samples which can be genetically tested to see what treatments would react best to an individual’s cancer type. Patients have a higher survival chance when lung cancer is detected early and staged accurately for these targeted treatments. Being pathologically staged is incredibly important as having tissue from suspicious areas is the only way to be sure that malignancy is present – clinical imaging tests alone are no longer sufficient to provide this information.
EBUS-TBNA is a minimally invasive test (in comparison to thoracic surgery, which is the other option for obtaining tissue or pathological stage) that has 20 years of proven success to diagnose and stage a patient’s lung cancer in one procedure. It’s the guideline recommended best first test for patients with suspicious lung nodules.
