Specialists in Adventist's interventional pulmonology program utilize the latest, minimally invasive procedures to diagnose and treat respiratory issues accurately. Ramyar Mahdavi, MD, discusses the state of the art technology Adventist Health Glendale offers to diagnose early stage lung cancers and other types of malignant and non-malignant types of cases. Dr. Mahdavi shares personal insights from a recent case.
My name is Ramya Mavi. I'm Board Certified International Pulmo. I've joined uh Adventist Health Glendale in summer 2024. I think the most important part of interventional pulmonology, specially when I wanna go back to lung cancer part and the diagnostic part is early diagnosis of lung cancer, which completely changed the uh scenario for the patient in terms of the treatment and survival. Um We have the state of the art here at uh at Dentist Health Glendale because we have all the advanced technology that we need to get to this point to diagnose early stage lung cancer. When I joined uh an academia or university hospital. 10 years ago, I never thought that we can do this kind of cases in a community health system. But with the support from uh uh Adventist Health Glendale, we can easily do all these kinds of procedures in the community. But this case that I wanna share with you is non malignant case. Uh I had a referral from uh another hospital. The patient uh is a 47 year old female who diagnosed with many years of asthma uh treated with different kind of nebulizer inhalers long term steroid and all those things without having ac A T scan of the chest, we transferred the patient here and we did a rigid bronchoscopy because my diagnosis with further uh investigation here with another kind of cat scan which we do it for dynamic airway collapse. The diagnosis was uh uh ec or excessive dynamic airway collapse. So the treatment for that is the stent trial, meaning that putting a stent in the airway to keep the airway open. Why stent my international porn colleagues, they know that is one of the most complicated procedure to put the wire stand because we have to put the stand. That part of one leg going to the right uh main bronchus, one leg left, main bronchus and the major part in the trachea. So successfully, we did the procedure with the tools and uh training and expertise that we had the day after the procedure, I went to her room when I saw her. I I won't forget that. Look that the patient was looking at me laughing. Oh doctor, you saved my life for the first time. After many years I can breathe. Uh That was really a moment for me to again, love my job, love what I what I'm doing in malignant cases. Again, the diagnostic part will be uh advanced bronchoscopy like uh uh EBUS or endobronchial ultrasound. It will be uh robotic bronchoscopy to do the biopsy from different parts of the lung with very precise movement with help of GPS system in the robotic bronchoscope and uh different kind of uh modalities like uh rigid bronchoscopy to get to the airway, uh to put stent in the airway to keep the airway open in malignant disease and non malignant diseases as well as uh putting, for example, another category of the procedures that we do with the plural procedure is tunnel pleural catheter for recurrent pleural effusion and the patient. Instead of coming to the hospital or the office to drain the fluid malignant or non malignant, uh we can put the catheter for the patient that he or she can uh basically get rid of the fluid himself or herself uh but draining the fluid at home. So again, quality of life and improving quality of life for the patient that we deal with is very important. Now, we have the program, real program for interventional p technology has been established at uh Adventist Health Glendale. We are ready to help or give this service to the patients and the referring physicians uh in the area or beyond this area. Uh to primary care doctors who found lung nodules in their evaluation of their patient. Incidentally to the family, family physicians who do the same. Maybe they find something in the cat scan, they found some nodules or something uh to medical oncologist, to radiation oncologist, to our colleagues in thoracic surgery. Uh that uh we can uh give this service to them and to their patients.
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