Contact: Norman S. Faas, Jr., 717-228-6079

For Immediate Release

November 13, 2008

ENDOBRONCHIAL ULTRASOUND (EBUS) – NOW AVAILABLE AT LEBANON VETERANS AFFAIRS MEDICAL CENTER

Dr. Ashok Khattri, a pulmonologist at the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center (LVAMC) saw the need to improve care for patients in his pulmonary clinic. The time to reach the diagnosis of lung cancer was often delayed due to the complicated logistics in diagnosing and staging patients. This often meant requiring the veteran to be transported to another facility for biopsy and staging procedures.

Over the past year Dr. Khattri reviewed national literature on the topic and felt that by performing the Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS) procedure at Lebanon VA Medical Center, he would be able to speed time to final diagnosis by combining the diagnosis and staging steps through the EBUS procedure. This would also decrease the rate of associated complications from alternative biopsy methods. With the support of the LVAMC, he recently completed EBUS training and is now completing the credentialing process.

The EBUS procedure allows the physician to obtain a tissue sample from the patient under real time ultrasound so that complications are reduced and tissue sampling is maximized. One study noted that by using EBUS, a successful tissue biopsy was obtained in 70% of the patients, roughly 30-50% more than previous methods, so that there was no need for additional surgery to obtain the tissue diagnosis.

Dr. Khattri is excited to be working on the cutting edge of pulmonary medicine and is believed to be the only pulmonary physician to have completed the EBUS training in VISN 4. He is hopeful that by pursuing this efficient medical process, he will improve the quality of care delivered to veterans across this region.

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