James W. Klena, M.D., discusses the prevalence and impact of lung cancer still in the U.S., the evolution of treatments, and the advantageous of robotic-assisted surgery.
My name is James Khanna. I am a cardiothoracic surgeon with an interest in thoracic surgery with Sentara mid atlantic cardio thoracic surgical group. Um I worked at Sentara Heart Hospital in Norfolk and at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital in Virginia Beach. And today I'd like to talk to you about lung cancer, specifically surgical intervention for lung cancer. Lung cancer has been a nemesis in this country since uh the early 19th century um when smoking became much, much more prevalent with the return of G. I. S. From World War One. Um and the incidence of tobacco use specifically cigarette, you still remains about 15 to 20% in this country. Unbelievably in the two thousands, Lung cancer kills about 50,000 Americans a year. There's a new diagnosis of lung cancer and about 150,000 Americans a year. It is the second most prevalent cancer in adult males and adult females behind only prostate and breast but remains a bigger killer than breast prostate colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. All put together. The medical community has spent a lot of time attempting to beat this nemesis. And in the last 10 years there's been multiple uh advancements in the care of lung cancer patients. Uh some of these have been uh the use of minimally invasive surgery, including robotic surgery. The use of um directed therapies uh on the oncology front and perhaps most importantly the use of low dose ct scanning for a diagnosis, which has made a huge difference in finding patients who are early stage lung cancer, especially specifically non small cell lung cancer. Where a difference can be made. The advantage of robotic surgery is that it allows us to perform surgery on people who normally would not be candidates for surgery because of comorbidities. Most importantly, most likely they're poor pulmonary function, um, and also due to poor cardiac function or other significant comorbidities. So like video assisted forecast comic surgery, which preceded robotic surgery as a minimum invasive modality. Um, the robot has proven to be a valuable tool for for, uh, the cure, an attempt to cure early stage lung cancer.
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