Roswell Park Cancer Institute has expanded its capabilities for advanced procedures with its new Endoscopy Center, which opened Thursday
Endoscopes are small tubes with cameras to see inside the body. Combined with other cutting-edge technology, the center's fellowship-trained specialists help diagnose and treat gastrointestinal, colorectal and pulmonary conditions.
Dr. Samjot Dhillon uses GPS to navigate the millions of airways in the lungs which he says can not be biopsied any other way. He says small instruments can now go inside lungs and sample tissue for determining the best chemotherapy.
"When we do bronchoscopy, we are in small tunnels, which we can't even see. We move these small catheters into these tunnels. The patient is in a magnetic field and the tip of our scope has this GPS instrument tells us where to go and we're able to reach these lesions which nobody else can," Dhillon said.
Dr. Andrew Bain says Roswell Park has recruited several highly trained specialists.
"Along with that comes a lot of new technologies that are offered in this area that, previously, patients would have to go to Cleveland or Rochester for. Now, those patients can have those procedures here," Bain said.
The state-of-the-art facility more than doubles the size of Roswell's previous endoscopy center.