Many aberrations picked up on lung cancer screens are harmless and benign, but a dangerous few are not. 

Now, robotic technology might quickly and safely sort out the good from the bad, a new study suggests. That could be a big win for patients, said lead author Dr. Sebastian Fernandez-Bussy. 

"Lung cancer survival depends heavily on early detection," said Fernandez-Bussy, dean of research and a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Mayo Clinic in Florida. "Technologies that allow us to diagnose and even treat disease earlier — and with fewer complications — can help improve survival."

His team published its new report on the technology in the April issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

As the researchers explained, lung cancers typically start small — a tiny nodule, often spotted via a CT chest scan. But how to separate out more dangerous, malignant nodules from the much more common benign ones?

Enter "shape-sensing robotic-assisted bronchoscopy," a technology cleared for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019.

With this device, doctors can pluck as many samples from lung tissue for biopsy as they need, instead of going into the lung multiple times. 

Adding in another technology, called endobronchial ultrasound, allows physicians to assess cancers on immune system glands (mediastinal lymph nodes) at the same time, the Mayo team said. 

Finally, the addition of high-tech 3D imaging allows doctors to biopsy tissues with refined accuracy. 

"This technology really has been a game-changer for diagnosing lung cancer earlier," Fernandez-Bussy said in a Mayo news release.

The new study evaluated 2,115 lung lesions in 1,904 patients at Mayo sites in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota. 

After the adoption of the new robotic technology, the proportion of lung cancers diagnosed at an early stage at Mayo Clinics rose from 46% in 2019 to nearly 69% by mid-2024, the team reported. 

The number of lung cancers that were caught only at their later (more dangerous) stages decreased from 54% in 2019 to 31% in 2024.

Many patients are also receiving treatment at the same moment their nodules are being assessed and staged, the research team noted. 

That's because robotic bronchoscopy is often being combined with treatments such as "pulsed electric field ablation," which zaps the suspicious growth in patients not eligible for surgery or radiation.

"I call this the 'single anesthetic lung surgery pathway,' and it means fewer trips to the hospital, less time away from family and shorter recovery times," said study co-author Dr. Janani Reisenauer, chair of thoracic surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. 

Catching and treating lung cancer early can reap big rewards for patients.

The five-year survival rate for patients with small tumors that haven't yet spread is 67%, according to the researchers, compared to just 12% for people with tumors that have metastasized.