Accurate Planning and Guidance of Bronchoscopy for Lung Cancer Management

Prior treatment

• Special classes of subjects that will be excluded are pregnant women because clinical CT scans and CT/PET studies are avoided because of the potential for radiation injury to the fetus.

Other illness

• Children are not part of this project because they do not get lung cancer. Therefore, we do not provide processes for meeting requirements for parental permission and child assent.

Other

• Mentally incompetent subjects will be excluded. They will be identified as such because their treating clinician will have deemed them unable to provide consent for their clinical procedure. The clinical record will indicate whether the patient is providing consent or a surrogate decision-maker has been needed. Patients with a surrogate decision-maker will be excluded.
• We will exclude prisoners and institutionalized individuals because their autonomy is compromised by their status, and the study provides no direct benefit from which they would be excluded. Individuals who become prisoners or are institutionalized after giving consent but before their diagnostic procedure would also be excluded. Their clinical record will identify if they are in custody.

• a planned clinical bronchoscopy to evaluate abnormal lung parenchyma and/or central chest lymph nodes;
• Radiology images, previously obtained for clinical purposes, that meet technical specifications and are available on our team's Radiology research server or can be uploaded from the Hershey Medical Center clinical image storage system.
  • a clinical CT scan performed at Hershey Medical Center, AND
  • Either one of two additional clinically available scans:
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  • CT/PET study OR
  • a clinical CT scan that includes inspiratory and expiratory images
• Must be able to read, write, and speak English.