Less Invasive Method Provides Highly Accurate Means To Determine Lung Cancer Stage, Mayo Clinic Study Suggests

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Using two different endoscopes together is better than using one to stage lung cancer, and is also much more precise and less invasive than the surgical method now most commonly used, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., report in the Feb. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. This new technique, which uses two small flexible tubes, one of which is inserted into a patient’s esophagus to access lymph nodes in the back of the lungs while the other is placed into the trachea, or airway, to reach nodes at the front and sides, was 93 percent accurate in finding malignant lymph nodes in a group of 138 patients. This is substantially more precise than all other lung cancer staging methods now in use today, say the researchers, who tested three different methods of non-invasive staging in their study.

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