Ability of single anesthesia for combined robotic-assisted bronchoscopy and surgical lobectomy to reduce time between detection and treatment in stage I non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND

Early identification, diagnosis, and treatment of lung cancer is associated with improved clinical outcomes. Robotic-assisted bronchoscopy improves the ability to diagnose early stage lung malignancies and, when combined with robotic-assisted lobectomy under single anesthesia, could reduce time from identification to intervention in early stage lung cancer in a select patient population.

METHODS

A retrospective case-control single-center study compared patients with radiographic stage I non-small cell carcinoma (NSCCA) undergoing robotic navigational bronchoscopy and surgical resection (N = 22) with historical controls (N = 63). The primary outcome was time from initial radiographic identification of a pulmonary nodule to therapeutic intervention. Secondary outcomes included times between identification to biopsy, biopsy to surgery, and procedural complications.

RESULTS

Patients with suspected stage I NSCCA who received single anesthesia for diagnosis and intervention with robotic-assisted bronchoscopy and robotic-assisted lobectomy had shorter times between identification of a pulmonary nodule and intervention compared to controls (65 vs 116 days,  = 0.005). Cases had lower rates of complications (0% vs 5%) and shorter hospitalizations after surgery (3.6 vs 6.2 days,  = 0.017).

CONCLUSION

Our findings support that implementing a multidisciplinary thoracic oncology team and single-anesthesia biopsy-to-surgery approach in management of stage I NSCCA significantly reduced times from identification to intervention, biopsy to intervention, and length of hospital stays in management of lung cancer.