ENB Robotic ICG Guided Surgery: A Novel Technique for Targeting Small Lung Tumors

Summary

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. However, if diagnosed at an early stage (tumor \<2 cm), lung cancer is highly curable with a 5-year survival rate greater than 80% after surgical resection. Screening tests have made it easier to identify small lung tumors. However, these tumors are often not visible to the naked eye, and surgeons cannot feel them, making them difficult to precisely locate and remove. For this reason, surgeons have become more reliant on image guided surgery for the removal of these tumors.

The standard of care for locating and removing small lung tumors is microcoil-guided video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). This is a two-step procedure performed by two separate physicians.

* First, patient is taken to radiology suite and radiologist inserts a microcoil near the lung tumor
* Second (usually occurs a few hours later), patient is taken to operating room; a surgeon uses an x-ray arm to find the microcoil within the lung and remove it surgically.

A pathologist reviews the resected tissue to make sure that the tumor and the microcoil were both removed. Until this evaluation, the surgeon does not know whether the tumor has been removed or not. While this method is safe, it is time consuming, uses staff resources, and requires bulky equipment to complete.

In this study, we plan to develop and test a new method of identifying and removing small lung tumors. This procedure is called Electromagnetic Navigational Bronchoscopy (ENB) Robotic Indocyanine Green Guided Surgery (RIGGS) or ENB-RIGGS for a short name. The purpose of this study is to test the safety and reliability of the ENB-RIGGS surgery in the form of a pilot study.

ENB-RIGGS surgery is done in the operating room by a surgeon under general anesthetic. ENB-RIGGS begins by creating a 3-D GPS map of the lung which guides the surgeon directly to the tumor. A fluorescent green dye called indocyanine green is then injected into the tumor, and when viewed by the special robotic camera the tumour will fluoresce with a green hue allowing the surgeon to easily see the tumour. The surgeon then uses the robot to remove the tumor and surrounding tissue. The lung tissue specimen will be evaluated immediately by a pathologist.

Conditions

• Non-small Cell Lung Cancer
• Thoracic Surgery

Interventions

DRUG

Indocyanine Green

In the operating room ENB will be used to locate the targeted lung tumor. Once the tumor is located, the surgeon will advance a bronchoscope to the tumor, a needle will be passed through the bronchoscope, and the tumor will be injected with 100-150 micro liters of ICG solution at 0.125mg/mL concentration. The tumor is expected to fluoresce using the da Vinci Firefly robotic camera, giving off a bright green hue. Wedge resection of the fluorescent part of the lung will then be performed. The excised specimen will be sent for immediate pathologist analysis. If the tumor is found within the specimen, and the specimen margins are free of tumor cells, then the procedure will be completed. If the tumor cannot be targeted or visualized, or if the tumor is not found in the pathological specimen, or if the margins of the specimen contain tumor cells, then a formal anatomical lobectomy or segmental resection of the lung will be performed to ensure that the tumor is completely excised.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Waël C. Hanna, MDCM, MBA, FRCSC · St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton / McMaster University

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-10-31

Primary Completion

2017-10-31

Completion

2017-10-31