The thoracic surgery team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently added a new tool to its collection of minimally invasive techniques to provide patients the most advanced robotic-assisted surgical procedures.

Collaboration between a mechanical engineer at Vanderbilt University and a pulmonologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has resulted in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant that will be used to develop a steerable robotic needle to safely biopsy hard-to-reach lung nodules.

Vanderbilt investigators have conducted a first-of-its-kind genome-wide association study of lung cancer survival in African-Americans.

Joe B. (Bill) Putnam Jr., M.D., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and chair of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, and colleague Felix Fernandez, M.D., assistant professor of Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, have received a grant to investigate the most effective forms of surgery to treat lung cancer patients.

Smoking is more detrimental to lung function in individuals with high proportions of African ancestry.

Even when lung operations for suspected cancer resection results in a benign diagnosis, there still may be significant benefits to the procedure, new research suggests.