A clinical trial of the innovative technology behind the treatment has begun at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, where up to 40 people will be encouraged to take part.
The first patient has already been recruited for the trial, which is being run through a partnership with the University of Edinburgh, NHS Lothian and the treatment’s developer Prothea Technologies.
Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK, and nine out of ten patients do not survive more than ten years.
Currently, patients with suspected early-stage lung cancer undergo screening tests with follow-up scans and biopsies of suspicious tissue. This approach can be slow and can often be inaccurate.
The Prothea team L-R Jim Stone CTO, Anne Moore COO, Crispin Simon CEO(Image: Nic Delves-Broughton)
Prothea’s tech, being used in the trial, allows biopsies to be visualised and tissue taken through a tiny catheter, while an ultrafast imaging and data capture tool offers live insights into the molecular makeup of the lesion.
This will be combined with a technology that removes the cancerous tissue, making it easier to rapidly spot disease and treat it in the same procedure.
The team behind Prothea say their technology could alleviate hospital pressures and improve patient outcomes by enabling lung biopsy, diagnosis and treatment to be carried out in a single hospital visit.
The ambitious spinout is the result of over 10 years of hard work and collaboration between the Universities of Edinburgh, Bath, Dundee and Durham, alongside NHS Lothian and Heriot-Watt University.
Technologies have been developed with support from leading organisations including UK Research and Innovation, the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK.
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Co-founder and Chief Science and Medical Officer of Prothea and Chair of Molecular Imaging and Healthcare Technology at the Institute for Regeneration and Repair, Professor Kev Dhaliwal previously said: “Collaborations like this demonstrate that universities working together can drive innovation and the economy to ensure the UK stays ahead of the curve on the global tech stage.
“We are fortunate to be able to take advantage of the unique benefits Scotland can offer as a location for healthcare research- using real-world data and the collaborative opportunities that exist between the NHS, UK academia, and industry.”
Dr Adam Marshall, Principal Investigator in the Precision Lung clinical investigation and Consultant Physician in Respiratory Medicine, NHS Lothian, said: “Despite the introduction of many new technologies in recent years there are still patients around the world whose biopsies don’t provide sufficient tissue for the pathology they require.
“This novel technology clearly offers something different and I hope that this study will prove to be a satisfactory basis for further clinical investigations.”