Mercy doctors collaborate to remove lung cancer nodule

Doctors at Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers were the first in Arkansas and across Mercy to detect and remove a cancerous lung nodule in a single procedure, according to a news release.

Patients typically must wait four weeks between detection and treatment. Last month, the doctors successfully performed the procedure in a single anesthetic event.

Mercy pulmonologist Dr. Penchala Mittadodla, assisted by pathologist Dr. Greg McKenzie, performed a minimally invasive, Ion robotic bronchoscopy-guided biopsy to diagnose the non-small cell lung cancer. They dye-marked the lesion, enabling Mercy cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Trung Ly Tran to perform a curative robotic segmentectomy, removing the lung lobe.

“This early-stage diagnosis and treatment in one procedure, done at only a few larger medical centers nationally, is quickly becoming the gold standard,” the release noted.

“Lung cancer — of all the cancers — has the highest mortality rate,” Mittadodla said. “The longer we wait, the more the cancer spreads and goes to the next stage. The key is to find the cancer early and the cure early. For this procedure, we basically reduced the waiting time from diagnosis to treatment to zero.”

According to the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, the survival rate for Stage IA1 lung cancer is 92% over five years. By Stage IIA, the survival rate drops to 60%.