Start-Up News November 2006

Advances in imaging technologies mean that tiny lung nodules can now be detected, creating a need for technologies for diagnosing and treating lung cancer at early stages. Median Technologies, in computer-assisted detection, PneumRx, with a better biopsy tool, and Perceptronix Medical and Menssana Research, with novel diagnostics, hope to help here.

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., in large part because it generally is not detected until it reaches the very late stages. Thus, while therapeutic interventions like photodynamic therapy, laser therapy, brachytherapy, and cryotherapy have made headway in improving survival rates for other types of cancers, survival rates for lung cancer are abysmal. Five-year survival rates for patients diagnosed with lung cancer average just 15.5% (Figure 1).

But the field is poised for change, it seems. A paper published in the October 26, 2006 issue of TheNew England Journal of Medicine reported on the first large-scale study...

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