{"id":230160,"date":"2025-10-16T23:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T23:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/230160\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T23:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T23:37:11","slug":"most-lung-cancer-is-diagnosed-at-stage-4-how-md-health-system-catches-40-at-stage-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/230160\/","title":{"rendered":"Most lung cancer is diagnosed at Stage 4: How Md. health system catches 40% at Stage 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frederick Health Medical Group is outpacing national averages by detecting nearly 40% of lung cancers at Stage 1 with 3D imaging and robotic bronchoscopy.<\/p>\n


\n An ion robotic bronchoscopy system used by Frederick Health.(Courtesy Frederick Health)<\/p>\n


\n An ion robotic bronchoscopy system used by Frederick Health.(Courtesy Frederick Health)<\/p>\n

Most lung cancer in the U.S. is diagnosed at Stage 4, after the leading cause of cancer deaths has spread to other parts of the body. However, a Maryland health system is outpacing national averages by detecting nearly 40% of lung cancers at Stage 1.<\/p>\n

Frederick Health Medical Group, in Frederick, Maryland, identifies lung cancer early by investigating tiny clues, which enables patients to get to cancer specialists earlier in the process, according to a doctor with the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cLung cancer is a scary thing because it does not cause symptoms until it\u2019s too late,\u201d said Dr. Maurice Smith, thoracic surgeon and medical director for chest surgery with Frederick Health Medical Group.<\/p>\n

With new 3D imaging, robotic bronchoscopy and a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach, Frederick Health is diagnosing nearly 40% of lung cancers at Stage 1, surpassing the national average of 27%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to get to these abnormalities in the lung before they get too big,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Doctors and researchers have long known that early diagnosis of lung cancer improves the success of available treatments, and the patient\u2019s quality of life.<\/p>\n

With more and more younger patients being diagnosed with lung cancer, advocacy groups have called for earlier screening with low-dose CT scans. Currently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines is limited to adults aged 50 to 80, who have smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s for patients who are high risk,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe government pays for it for 50 through 80. You don\u2019t necessarily have an abnormality, but you\u2019re trying to screen to see if you do.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

And only approximately 20% of Americans who are eligible for screening<\/a> get it done on an annual basis.<\/p>\n

Most of the lung cancer cases discovered by Frederick Health came when doctors weren\u2019t looking for cancer.<\/p>\n

Smith said that of the 130 lung cancers diagnosed at Frederick Health recently, 60% were identified after a CT scan for another reason, and only 40% were discovered during lung cancer screening.<\/p>\n

According to the American Cancer Society<\/a>, the five-year survival rate for non-small cell lung cancer discovered in Stage 1 is 67%. For Stage 4, in which lung cancer has spread to other organs, the five-year survival rate is 12%, although it continues to improve significantly with recent trends in targeted therapies.<\/p>\n

Early diagnosis, even though \u2018it didn\u2019t blare lung cancer\u2019<\/p>\n

Smith said Frederick Health isn\u2019t getting more people in for CT lung cancer screening, but rather capitalizing on CT scans that are done in the emergency room or a physician\u2019s office to deal with everything from a cough to a sprain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go to the ER department, for the most part you\u2019re going to walk out of there with a CT scan,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe disconnect has been that those CT scans in the ER, those CT scans in the community, were not being followed up on, because it wasn\u2019t flagged as suspicious, because it was a smaller nodule.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s changed with implementation of ION robotic technology, manufactured by Intuitive, along with advanced 3D imaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to go after lesions as small as an apple seed,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Now, if a CT scan done in the ER or the office of a Frederick Health provider discovers a nodule that was previously considered too small for concern, a report is automatically forwarded to the center\u2019s incidental pulmonary nodules clinic, which contacts the patient and primary care provider to coordinate follow-up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s cancer: Now what?<\/p>\n

New robotic bronchoscopy technology gives surgeons and interventional pulmonologists a way to perform minimally invasive biopsies of lung nodules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe traditional bronchoscopy is about the size of your thumb, so it can only navigate to a certain point within your airway,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWith our new robotic bronchoscopy, it\u2019s very thin and flexible, so it\u2019s able to reach any point in the lung from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the staging process to determine whether lung cancer has spread, a patient would typically undergo three procedures: a bronchoscopy to retrieve a biopsy, another bronchoscopy after diagnosis to look for spread to lymph nodes in the center of the chest, and finally a lobectomy, or other surgery to remove an early-stage tumor.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo now, from that first appointment, we are usually getting patients a biopsy within two to three weeks,\u201d Smith said. \u201cFrom beginning to end, to diagnosis, we\u2019re about three to four weeks, which we\u2019re very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frederick Health Medical Group is outpacing national averages by detecting nearly 40% of lung cancers at Stage 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[128468,72246,128469,97,252,253,128470,39942,9538,128471],"class_list":{"0":"post-230160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-bronchoscopy","9":"tag-cancer-screening","10":"tag-frederick-health","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-ion-robotic","15":"tag-lung-cancer","16":"tag-neal-augenstein","17":"tag-stage-1-lung-cancer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}