Interventional bronchoscopy from bench to bedside: new techniques for early lung cancer detection.

Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death in the world, and it accounts for more deaths than breast, colon, and prostate cancer combined in the United States. From a historical perspective, the premise behind early lung cancer detection strategy is that early detection of lung cancer is justified if early treatment improves the outcome. New optical technologies such as those presented in this article allow dynamic study of these processes at the cellular level, and it is hoped that opportunities for targeted therapy will be provided in the future. Investigators are on the verge of discovering a multidimensional bronchoscopic platform that can be used to narrow in on airway structures, explore vascular flow and angiogenesis, and discover new features of bronchogenic carcinogenesis.