LCRP offers unique interventional pulmonary program

Paul P. Hinchey
President & CEO
St. Joseph’s/Candler

Betsy Yates
Public Relations Manager
St. Joseph’s/Candler
(912) 819-8139
yatesb@sjchs.org

May 17, 2006

St. Joseph’s/Candler’s Nancy N. and J.C. Lewis Cancer & Research Pavilion (LCRP) offers the only interventional pulmonary program of its kind in the region.

Interventional pulmonology employs state-of-the-art minimally invasive technology that works similarly to a coronary stent. Advanced alloy stents are deployed in the lung airways that are blocked by cancer to allow patients to breathe again.

A special laser-like technology is used to blast away tumors in the bronchial tubes to make way for the stents and also to stop the bleeding. As in angioplasty, balloons are used to restore airflow through the lungs. Ultra advanced miniaturized ultrasound is also used in the bronchial tubes to help find tumors for biopsy.

“What is more exciting than giving someone back their breath?”
Dr. Doug Mullins, interventional pulmonologist who founded the unique program at LCRP, says this field of cancer treatment is a keystone of thoracic oncology, considering recent statistics on lung cancer.

According to a report available online through the American Lung Association, more than 350,000 Americans are currently living with lung cancer, the majority of whom were diagnosed in the last five years.

Stents are used in the main bronchial tubes. Even if there is near total blockage of the airway, the stent will restore the opening to a normal size. Stents are compressed to a very small size prior to insertion, but once they are guided into the area of blockage they gently expand to full size, pushing tumor out of the way.

“The results are dramatic,” says Mullins, “I have seen numerous patients who came in with debilitating shortness of breath and deadly low oxygen levels, who have resumed near normal day to day activities the day after an intervention.”

“It is hard to exaggerate the benefit that this service provides, and the visual results are stunning to behold,” he said. “What is more exciting than giving someone back their breath?”

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