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>> There have definitely been significant advances
over the last decade or so in the treatment of lung cancer.
For the subset of patients that have disease that's contained
in their lungs, we have a very good chance of curing them.
And our tools to cure them are getting better and better.
They are getting more sophisticated
and our outcomes are better
and the side effects are becoming less.
So, the gold standard
for decades has been surgical resection, but many patients
with lung cancer have pretty poor lung function
and they can't tolerate these operations.
So, that's where these newer technologies are coming
in like CyberKnife, which is a way that we can
in a completely non-invasive fashion,
target these tumors and cure them.
Another option is lung brachytherapy,
which is actually inserting radioactive materials right
up against the tumor.
That's done in conjunction with surgery
so now the surgeon instead of having to take
out the entire lung or entire lobe can just wedge
out a small piece of the lung
and we place radioactive pellets right up against it.
And again, the outcomes when you look at lung brachytherapy
and CyberKnife in terms of local control, controlling that cancer
in the lung seem to be just as good as the surgery.
>> Most radiation that's delivered is delivered
from the outside in where we use machines
like linear accelerators or cobalt machines
that have energy source
that actually puts radiation through the body.
Brachytherapy actually involves using radioactive isotopes
that are either within the tumor itself or adjacent to the tumor
to deliver the dose from the inside out.
>> Here at El Camino Hospital, we now have everything available
for the lung cancer patient.
We still, you know, we have excellent thoracic surgeons
who can perform the lobectomies and pneumonectomies
when they're necessary, but for those patients
who are not really candidates now for those procedure,
we have the backup procedures.
We have got the CyberKnife treatment.
Now, we have this lung Mesh Brachytherapy program.
You know for instance the very first patient we did here was
the first patient done using the da Vinci robot,
it was a robotically placed brachytherapy procedure using a
very, very short half life radioactive source.
So again, a first I think in the world and this patient
that we just treated was not a candidate for a surgery,
he couldn't have a pneumonectomy,
he couldn't have a lobectomy, and he wasn't a candidate
for CyberKnife because he had already had radiation twice
previously, so it couldn't have CyberKnife treatment.
So, for most-- if he had gone anywhere else,
I don't think we would have had any other real good options,
but fortunately here at El Camino we have this alternative
that will still give him a better than 95% chance
of controlling this cancer.