Cancer detection made easier

New Haven, Conn. (WTNH) - Detecting cancer took a big step forward in the latest technology now available in Connecticut.It's the world's smallest microscope to help pinpoint cancer, and only one hospital in the state has it.

Gary Rolf is back for a followup procedure after doctors here at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital removed cancer cells from his esophagus.

"I had that acid reflux, it was just constant that acid, that burning in my esphogus," said Rolf, now cancer free. "I was all for it. It's new, it's high tech."

Interventional gasteroenterologists used the world's smallest microscope to get rid of the tumor.

"You shine this lower powered blue laser onto the point of interest and then the light is emitted from the tissue and its collected and detected in the confocal system," said Dr. Uzma Saddiqui of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital."

And the image is magnified a thousand times.

"It allows you to focus in on an area and have extreme magnification which you wouldn't otherwise obtain," Dr. Saddiqui said. "It's like looking through a microscope and actually doing it in real time."

So doctors get immediate confirmation.

"There's more accurate diagnosis and immediate treatment," said Dr. Harry Aslanian of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

And act on the information, in real time.

"To get this type of view in the past we would have to get a biopsy to remove the tissue and then stain it and then wait a day and look at it under a microscope," Dr. Aslanian said.

Meanwhile, in outpatient surgery..

Dr. Siddiqui is looking for pre-cancerous cells using the high tech microscope.

He found some and is now removing them.

Again, Rolf avoids undergoing a biopsy and major surgery. For this patient, it was also about getting regular exams.

"You're not happy that you had the cancer but you got to be happy we spotted it early."

Currently the high tech microscope is being used to help detech cancer mostly in the intestinal tract and lungs.

Doctors at Smilow were the first in the world to use it in the pancreas during an investigative trial.