El Camino Hospital in California recently became the first in the country to perform a robotic bronchoscopy procedure to obtain a lung tissue sample.

This is part of a clinical trial investigating Auris Health’s Monarch Platform, which scored FDA approval in March.

“Since the robotic bronchoscope has the ability to travel deeper into the lung and precisely guide a biopsy instrument to even the most difficult nodules, the technology offers the potential to diagnose lung cancer at an earlier stage,” Dr. Ganesh Krishna of El Camino Hospital, said in a statement.

The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be about 234,030 new cases of lung cancer this year. More than half of people with lung cancer die within one year of being diagnosed, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The Monarch Platform is a flexible robotic endoscope that helps physicians diagnose and treat small peripheral lung nodules that are difficult to reach. Unlike conventional computer-assisted navigation based on 3-D models of the patient’s lung anatomy, Monarch provides continuous bronchoscope vision throughout the entire procedure.

The single-center, prospective, single-arm study evaluating the performance of the Monarch Platform is currently recruiting participants. They must have potentially malignant solid peripheral lung lesions between 1.5 and 7 centimeters that were identified with thin-slice CT within 30 days of the intended bronchoscopy.

In the preclinical setting, the system has shown promise for addressing the limitations of currently available bronchoscpoic methods for assessing suspicious peripheral lung nodules. Even though the system has regulatory approval, it is not yet commercially available.