Boston Scientific 2012-2013
Faculty Advisor: Jessica Townsend
Sponsor: Boston Scientific
Designing a Tool for Greater Confidence in Lung Biopsies
When a patient is at risk for lung cancer, low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans can show physicians whether there is a dense area of tissue, or lesion, in the lungs. If there is, a physician will do a bronchoscopy procedure to determine if the lesion is cancerous - a bronchoscope is passed into the patient’s lungs, a tool at the end of a long catheter is passed through the bronchoscope, a sample is taken to be analyzed later, and the bronchoscope is removed. One primary problem in this procedure is lack of confidence that the physician has taken a sample of the same dense area that showed up on the CT scan.
The Boston Scientific-Olin SCOPE team designed a new tool to address this issue. The team delivered a developed tool concept that takes a sample of tissue and gives physicians confidence that the sample was indeed a part of the lesion.
Faculty Advisor
Jessica Townsend
Team Members
Kelsey Breseman
Molly Farison
Michael Heyns
Jenny Ma
Sarah Mathew
Daniel Wilson (Babson MBA)