Robot-Guided Device Reaches Tumors Deep In The Lungs

Key Takeaways

• A robot-assisted bronchoscope can reach small tumors growing in the deepest parts of the lung

• The device was able to reach and biopsy more than 84% of abnormal growths at the outer edges of the lungs

• It also got to nearly 93% of tumors unreachable by traditional bronchoscopy

TUESDAY, Sept. 30, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A cutting-edge robot-assisted bronchoscope can reach very small tumors growing in the lung’s deepest recesses, according to clinical trial results presented at a European Respiratory Society meeting in Amsterdam.

The device uses a specialized CT scanner to find tumors buried deep in hard-to-reach places of the lung, researchers said.

A robot helps guide the bronchoscope to those deep places, allowing doctors to take a biopsy and confirm whether tissue is cancerous, researchers said.

“The technology allows specialists to access nearly any region of the lung, meaning that we can offer biopsy to more patients and diagnose cancers earlier when treatment is more likely to be effective,” lead researcher Dr. Carolin Steinack, a senior attending pulmonologist at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, said in a news release.

This could help doctors find and treat lung cancers at an earlier and more treatable stage, said Aleš Rozman, chair of the European Respiratory Society’s expert group on interventional pulmonology, who reviewed the findings.

“Survival is typically much higher if patients are diagnosed when their cancer is still at an early stage; however, these very small tumors are often difficult to diagnose,” Rozman, head of endoscopy at University Clinic Golnik in Slovenia, said in a news release. 

“This research shows that robot-assisted technology can help diagnose many more of these tiny tumors in hard-to-reach parts of the lungs,” he said.

In bronchoscopy, doctors guide a thin tube fitted with a light and camera down your throat and into your airways and lungs.

For this clinical trial, researchers performed a bronchoscopy on 78 patients who had a total of 127 abnormal growths at the outer edges of their lungs, where easy access through a connecting airway is often unavailable.

The tumors were small — less than a half-inch wide on average — and fewer than 15% had a connecting airway, researchers said.

Half the patients were assigned to receive regular bronchoscopy using X-ray imaging, and the other half robot-assisted bronchoscopy using CT scans.

The robot-assisted bronchoscope was able to reach 84% of the tumors, compared with 23% for traditional bronchoscopy, results showed.

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In cases where a biopsy wasn’t successful with the usual technique, researchers then employed the robot-assisted bronchoscope. In those cases, nearly 93% were successful in reaching the tumor and obtaining a biopsy.

Overall, 68 patients were diagnosed with lung cancer and 50 had the very earliest —and most treatable — form of the disease, researchers said.

“In clinical practice, this technology enables accurate diagnosis in patients for whom conventional bronchoscopy offers no viable option,” Steinack said.

However, the technology isn’t cheap — the new system costs more than $1.1 million and adds about $2,350 to the cost of a single procedure, researchers noted.

“In centers that see lots of patients with these tumors, I believe the benefits of this technology justify the investment,” senior researcher Dr. Thomas Gaisl, a pulmonologist with University Hospital Zurich, said in a news release. “However, the robotic system should be reserved for small, hard-to-reach lesions, where conventional bronchoscopy is not an option.”

Rozman said research is essential.

“It’s vital that we carry out this type of gold-standard research so that we can justify the significant additional cost of installing and using this equipment,” he said.

The findings were presented Sunday. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on bronchoscopy.

SOURCE: European Respiratory Society, news release, Sept. 26, 2025

What This Means For You

People with hard-to-reach tumors in their lungs might receive improved care using robot-assisted devices.