COVINGTON, Louisiana – St. Tammany Health System has become the first in Louisiana to offer Body Vision Medical's C-Arm Based Tomography (CABT) that produces intraoperative CT imaging for earlier and more accurate lung cancer diagnosis.
“We are excited to bring this highly advanced diagnostic technology close to home for our patients,” STHS Pulmonologist Dr. Ricardo Blanco said. “It enables us to visualize and pursue lesions such as ground glass opacities and other challenging lesions that without this technology are some of the hardest cancers to diagnose.”
Body Vision’s CABT produces real-time intraoperative imaging so that pulmonologists can see the actual lung lesion and its location during a diagnostic bronchoscopy procedure, enabling them to biopsy from smaller, more difficult-to-access lung lesions at an earlier stage. This image-guided biopsy dramatically increases the likelihood of an early, definitive diagnosis for potential lung cancer patients and improves the probability of timely treatment and patient survival.
Pulmonologists are challenged to obtain diagnostic tissue from suspicious lung lesions due to the fact that they cannot see the lesion and its location during biopsy. Body Vision’s CABT imaging allows pulmonologists to see the actual lesion and lesion location intraoperatively in real-time so that they can precisely navigate to the lung lesion and visually confirm that they are indeed taking tissue samples from within the lesion during biopsy. There is no other technology readily accessible to pulmonologists that enables this kind of image-guided biopsy that has been clinically proven to maximize the likelihood of obtaining a conclusive diagnosis.
According to the American Lung Association, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States with an average five-year survival rate of only 18.6%.
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About St. Tammany Health System
The heartbeat of its community, St. Tammany Health System cares for patients and families with excellence, compassion and teamwork. It is nationally recognized for quality, safety and service excellence by CareChex, Leapfrog, Healthgrades, Hospital Compare, Women’s Choice and US News & World Report. The health system is home to 281-bed St. Tammany Parish Hospital Service District No. 1, three diagnostic centers and 12 medical clinics throughout western St. Tammany Parish. Self-supporting, not-for-profit STHS is AA- rated by Fitch and receives no tax funding. More at StTammany.health.
About Body Vision Medical
Body Vision Medical is a medical device company specializing in real-time, intraoperative CT imaging. The company, founded in 2014, is addressing the clinical need for early, definitive lung cancer diagnosis and effective treatment of lung lesions via a minimally-invasive procedure. Body Vision is FDA cleared and CE marked. Over 1,000 patients to date have benefited from their advanced, tomographic imaging. Body Vision Medical is committed to making real-time, intraoperative CT imaging during diagnostic bronchoscopy the standard of care for each and every potential lung cancer patient. Learn more at: www.bodyvisionmedical.com.