superDimension, Inc.®, a private company that develops minimally invasive interventional pulmonology devices, announced today that The American Medical Association (AMA) has issued a new Category I CPT® code for the use of the Company's electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy (ENB) device to navigate to lesions or spots deep in the lungs. The code will become effective January 1, 2010. The AMA also issued a new CPT I® code for the placement of fiducial radiosurgical markers via the ENB procedure.
ENB is a minimally invasive procedure, where a catheter is inserted through the throat or nose and uses Global Positioning System (GPS) like technology to biopsy lung lesions and lymph nodes all in one outpatient procedure. ENB provides a three-dimensional virtual "roadmap" of the lungs that enables a physician to maneuver the catheters through multiple branches of the bronchial tree, extending beyond the capabilities of the traditional bronchoscope to distant, previously inaccessible regions of the lungs. If the targeted lesions are determined to be cancerous, a pulmonologist can use ENB to transbronchially place radiosurgical markers in and around lung tumors (lesions) to help radiation oncologists treat patients with external beam radiation. The outpatient procedure typically leaves the patient with no more than a sore throat.
Previously, the "gold standard" to diagnose lung cancer consisted of two invasive surgeries: wedge thoracotomy (open chest partial lung removal) to biopsy the lung and mediastinoscopy (invasive lymph node surgery) to biopsy the lymph nodes. Patients with poor lung function who could not tolerate these more invasive procedures were left with "watchful waiting" as their only option.
"ENB has completely transformed my medical practice and the way I diagnose and facilitate the treatment of early stage lung cancer patients," said David Wilson, M.D. at Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Indiana. "If we can diagnose and treat lung cancer in its early stages, we should be able to dramatically increase the long-term survival rate for patients."