The name Dr. Javier Pérez Pallarés, an interventional pulmonologist at the Santa Lucía Hospital in Cartagena and president of the Spanish Association of Respiratory Endoscopy and Interventional Pulmonology, crossed the boundaries for his joint work with Dr. Miguel Ariza, from the Central Hospital of Asturias, who developed the new CryoEbus technique with which they could change the deplorable lung cancer.
A new technique has recently helped in the diagnosis of lung cancer. What is?
The technique that I developed together with Dr. Miguel Ariza is the mediastinal cryobiopsy transbronchial echobronchoscopy, which is called CryoEbus, and which I can develop in Cartagena at the Interventional Pneumology Unit of the Saint Lucia Hospital, by Dr. Directed to Antonio. Santa Cruz, accompanied by D. Maria del Mar Valdivia.
How did it happen?
It consists of doing an ultrasound inside the bronchus with a small ultrasound machine and locating nodes around the bronchus that may be affected by cancer. The sample is collected with a state-of-the-art probe that freezes and removes a piece of that node at minus 75 degrees, providing a large biopsy sample, rather than a much smaller one that would be performed with a finer needle. This allows us to increase the sample size and reduce the risk of bleeding.
What are the advantages of having a larger sample?
The importance of this technology in the world is that in recent years oncologists have developed new treatments for lung cancer, which greatly increase survival, but to give them it is necessary for the oncologist to have a lot of information about cancer. This information could not be obtained with the fine needles which we used before, and we obtained it with a much larger sample, which we now thank in the cold.
What is the procedure until the arrival of CryoEbi?
Previously, the puncture was echobronchoscopy-guided and now it is biopsy-guided echobronchoscopy. Before very few cells were removed and now more fragments have been obtained and because of this the oncologist has more information, can give new treatments and can save more lives in cases of lung cancer. As a result, it is possible to carry out a molecular study, which previously was not possible in all cases.
What other benefits do they have for the patient?
The patient avoids having to repeat the tests and undergo a much more invasive intervention to open the chest and remove the lymph node. Now it is done in this way, which is ambulatory and does not require hospital admission, thanks to the latest generation of equipment in Area II.
Is this technique already used in Saint Lucia Hospital?
So we were in Cartagena every year: we were the first in Spain and around the world together with the Central Hospital of Asturias.
Are there other centers that are also interested in incorporating into their Pulmonology units?
Now we are trained by professionals from other hospitals in Spain that requested it and other centers in Europe and Latin America.
How far does CryoEbus come?
Two weeks ago I was with Dr. Ariza teaching pulmonologists in the city of Naples. We have done the first technique of this kind in Italy, since it has not been done before, and we are going to teach it to other colleagues. But they are also calling us to go to Japan, Korea, India, France, Britain, Belgium, Ecuador, Mexico and the Dominican Republic to train pulmonologists there and to reach out to other artists. It is technology that will change the world of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment in the coming year.
And in view of this, what follows?
Soon the Hospital of Santa Lucia in Cartagena, together with the Central Hospital in Asturias, will be the only Spanish centers that will enter a universal study with eight other hospitals to demonstrate this technique to increase survival in breast cancer. A job that will start in one or two months.
