Olympus Partners with American Lung Association on Patient Education for Lung Cancer Screening

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Mar 27, 2024, 08:08 ET

Lung.org educational resources help patients understand lung nodule diagnosis and staging

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., March 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Olympus Corporation of the Americas, a global medical technology company committed to making people's lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling, is now partnering with the American Lung Association to educate lung cancer patients about the care pathway for diagnosing and staging lung nodules.

More patients are surviving lung cancer today in part because lung nodules are being found earlier and are being diagnosed and staged more accurately when cancer is suspected.¹

A lung nodule is a small mass of dense tissue on the lung. So, what happens after a physician discovers a lung nodule? There are many steps that help medical teams gather more information about the nodule and a patient’s health. One important step is staging. Accurate staging leads to more precise treatment. Support for this video was made possible by Olympus.

Olympus is the sponsor of new patient education resources for lung cancer diagnosis and staging on Lung.org.

The lung nodules educational resources, sponsored by Olympus, help patients understand the diagnosis and staging process for lung nodules and why it is important to their treatment journey. With this information, patients are empowered to make the best-informed decisions about their own care.

"Olympus is very excited to support this great new educational resource for lung cancer patients through our partnership with the American Lung Association," said Jovan Reyerson, Senior Vice President of Medical and Scientific Affairs at Olympus Corporation of the Americas. "Empowered patients are able to more actively participate in their care, ask relevant questions, and advocate for themselves."

Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA), a procedure pioneered by Olympus, has helped lay the groundwork for targeted cancer treatment such as immunotherapy. The technology helps pulmonologists locate nodules and lymph nodes and collect the tissue samples needed to diagnose and stage their disease, and this analysis informs the personalized, targeted cancer therapy provided by treatments such as immunotherapy.

Using technologies such as EBUS-TBNA, physicians can tell not only how far lung cancer has spread but also understand the genetic make-up of the cancer cells, which helps physicians recommend the most targeted therapies.

Potential complications associated with endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) include sore throat, infection, bleeding, perforation, and/or tumor seeding (when EUS-fine needle aspiration or biopsy is performed).

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the United States.² Early detection of lung cancer is key as the 5-year relative survival rate for non-small cell lung cancer is about 65% when caught at a localized stage. That figure drops to about 37% once the cancer spreads outside the lungs to areas such as the lymph nodes, and then the figure drops to single digits once cancer spreads to distant parts of the body.³ Olympus is proud to sponsor this new Lung.org patient education campaign aimed at helping people get the care that they need in order to be diagnosed and treated as early as possible.

About Olympus
At Olympus, we are committed to Our Purpose of making people's lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling. As a global medical technology company, we partner with healthcare professionals to provide best-in-class solutions and services for early detection, diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment, aiming to improve patient outcomes by elevating the standard of care in targeted disease states.

For more than 100 years, Olympus has pursued a goal of contributing to society by producing products designed with the purpose of delivering optimal outcomes for its customers around the world. For more information, visit medical.olympusamerica.com.

¹ The American Lung Association, "State of Lung Cancer 2023 Report"
² American Cancer Society, "Key Statistics for Lung Cancer." Rev. January 2023
³ American Cancer Society, "Lung Cancer Survival Rates." Rev. March 2023

SOURCE Olympus Corporation of the Americas