‘Game-changing:’ Milwaukee surgeon first in area to use FDA-approved drug to shine light on hidden lung cancer

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — A new drug is helping surgeons see cancer that once went undetected, lighting up tumors in real time during surgery.

Dr. Mallory Hunt, an assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, is using Cytalux, a fluorescent imaging agent designed to highlight cancer cells during procedures.

“It’s an agent that allows us to eliminate cancer cells during surgery,” Dr. Hunt told CBS 58’s Ellie Nakamoto-White.

How it works is Cytalux targets a molecule called folate that many cancers rely on for energy.

“A lot of different tumors express a receptor on their surface called the alpha folate receptor,” Dr. Hunt said.

Patients receive Cytalux before surgery.

The drug then mimics folate and uses a fluorescent dye that, when activated by special filters on a robotic camera, causes cancerous tissue to glow in real time — most often a bright neon green.

“There really isn’t any other sort of agent like it on the market that allows us to really see any sort of cancer in the chest or other parts of the body,” Dr. Hunt said. “For example, we found tumors that we never would’ve found otherwise, because they’re too small or in other parts of the lung. We never would’ve seen them.”

The technology is especially useful in lung surgery, where nodules can be tiny or difficult to locate.

One of Dr. Hunt’s patients is Mark Unak of Milwaukee, who, nearly three years after being treated for colon cancer, noticed a small nodule in his lung during follow-up CT scans.

Over time, that nodule grew from three millimeters to nine millimeters, smaller than the size of a pea.

But using Cytalux, Dr. Hunt was able to precisely locate the glowing tumor and remove only a small necessary portion of Unak’s lung.

“This is a drug that’s allowing the doctor to go in and get a specimen that could possibly have a clean margin the first time,” Unak said. “This gives them eyes into what’s really going on that they just never had before.”

Dr. Hunt also said the tech has allowed surgeons to operate on patients who were previously considered too high-risk for traditional procedures.

In one case, she mentioned a patient who couldn’t tolerate the removal of an entire lung lobe but was able to undergo a less invasive and limited surgery.

“She’s now cancer-free, whereas she might not have been offered an operation if this technology wasn’t available,” Dr. Hunt said.

Now, Unak is able to focus on chemo, and Dr. Hunt can focus on helping save more lives.

“We operate on probably 15 to 20 people a week, and I could find a use for Cytalux in almost all of them,” Dr. Hunt said. “When I think of this type of technology, I think of it allowing us to do things robotically that we never thought were possible… I just see this technology as a tool to expand the scope of the patients that we can operate on.”