Auris Health touts robotically-assisted bronchoscopy study results

Auris Health’s Monarch bronchoscopy platform reached lung nodules and biopsied tissue with “high accuracy” in a recent study, according to the company.

Eight investigators performed robotic-assisted bronchoscopy procedures using the Monarch platform on a cadaveric model designed to mimic a real-life bronchoscopy procedure. Sixty-seven simulated tumor targets one to three centimeters in size were prepared in eight human cadaveric lungs. The tissue acquired during the bronchoscopy was evaluated and correctly identified as the implanted target in 97% of cases, the study noted. Auris presented the results of the ACCESS study during last week’s CHEST 2018 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

The ACCESS study was the next step following the REACH study, which focused on the Monarch Platform’s ability to reach deeper into the lung periphery, according to Alexander Chen, M.D., of St. Louis, Mo., who presented the study results. The REACH study, published earlier this year in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, found that the platform improved reach beyond a conventional thin bronchoscope into the periphery of human cadaveric lungs.

“Our mission is to enable diagnosis of lung cancer earlier in its progression, through the least-invasive approach – via the body’s natural openings,” said Frederic Moll, M.D., founder and CEO of Auris Health, in a prepared statement. “We are pleased with the performance the Monarch Platform demonstrated in the REACH and ACCESS studies, and look forward to further assessing the system’s benefits in prospective human clinical trials in the near future.”

Redwood City, Calif.-based Auris designed the Monarch platform to allow physicians to diagnose small, hard-to-reach peripheral lung nodules with greater precision. Auris said in May that it had inked a cooperative development and commercialization deal with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) division Ethicon’s NeuWave Medical subsidiary to develop systems for the robotically-assisted bronchoscopic ablation of lung lesions.