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When Pastor Vic Comstock, 63, arrived at a hospital near his home in Moberly, Missouri, he thought he was battling pneumonia. Vic faced a series of life-threatening complications, including sepsis, respiratory failure, and dehydration.

In a surgical suite at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a robotic arm snakes an ultra-thin, ultra-flexible tube through a patient’s airway. Once the tube reaches the lungs, the surgeon operating the device remotely uses a tiny camera to search the area for an abnormal growth, or nodule, that might be cancerous.

The earlier lung cancer is detected, the better the odds are of successful treatment.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid recently adopted new guidelines for lung cancer screening, changing the age at which men and women should start screening and expanding criteria for smoking history.