Surgical Robotics Technology
Auris Health has announced that a MONARCH® Robotic-Assisted Bronchoscopy procedure was performed in Hong Kong this week, marking the first MONARCH procedure to take place outside of the United States.
Calvin S.H. Ng, M.D., Professor of Thoracic Surgery at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, will be the first investigator outside of the US in the TARGET (Transbronchial Biopsy Assisted by Robot Guidance in the Evaluation of Tumors of the Lung) clinical study at Prince of Wales Hospital.
The TARGET study is designed to evaluate clinical safety and diagnostic accuracy of the robotic-assisted bronchoscopy with biopsy performed with the Monarch® Platform in a broad range of patients with pulmonary lesions. The study will enroll up to 1,200 patients at up to 30 investigative sites.
“The early clinical success and strong customer adoption for Monarch in the U.S. has been very encouraging, and we are excited to be bringing robotic bronchoscopy to new global markets” said Eric Davidson, President, Flexible Robotics, Auris Health. “This first international procedure is an exciting milestone on our path to generating robust clinical evidence globally to support the use of the MONARCH® Platform.”
Dr. Ng is a pioneer in advancing minimally invasive techniques with the latest technologies, including single port VATS for major lung resection, image-guided surgery in a Hybrid Operating Room, and Bronchoscopic Microwave Ablation.
“I am pleased to have performed the first MONARCH procedure in the Asia Pacific region,” said Dr. Ng. “The diagnostic yield of conventional bronchoscopic approaches for peripheral lesions remains suboptimal. The novel robotic assisted bronchoscopy procedure with the MONARCH® platform allows physicians to accurately access small and hard-to-reach lung nodules, enabling biopsy for early diagnosis and treatment of lung disease.”
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. More patients die every year from the disease than from prostate, breast, and colon cancer combined. Nodules are typically small, deep in the lungs and difficult to reach, making early-stage diagnosis and treatment difficult. Conventional diagnostic options available for lung cancer have limitations in accuracy, safety, or invasiveness. These limitations can lead to false positives, false negatives, or side effects such as pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and hemorrhage, which may increase health care costs and extend hospital stays.
Auris Health’s revolutionary MONARCH Platform, the first commercial robotic platform for diagnostic and therapeutic bronchoscopic procedures, is designed to allow physicians to diagnose small, hard-to-reach peripheral lung nodules with greater precision than ever before.
Source: Auris Health.
