New technology uses telecytology to provide results of possible thyroid cancer sooner

KEARNEY, Neb. — A local hospital is the first in the state to use a technology that allows patients to get results of thyroid cancer sooner, but what does that actually mean?

The technology uses telecytology to review patient thyroid specimen and connects to a pathologist via Skype.

Lisa Kennedy, a histologist for Kearney Regional Medical Center (KRMC) said she thought she had seen it all in her 35 years of preparing tissue for light.

That was until she was connecting to a doctor via iPad to provide patients with faster results.

"It benefits them that they don't have to come back for a second visit in case we did not get adequate cells. Before this technology, that was the case. This allows them to be able to have their diagnosis days if not a week sooner," said a KRMC Histologist Lisa Kennedy.

In the United States, there is an estimated 56,000 people diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year with around two thousand dying from their disease, according to Nebraska Hematology Oncology.

"There is a high incidence of thyroid cancer. I guess all cancers are probably more prevalent in the Midwest and this is just something that we are able to use to increase turnaround time for the results for our patients" said KRMC Lab Manager Corlis Kozera.

So how does the technology work? After the specimen is collected from the patient, Kennedy then connects to a pathologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) to determine if what they got is adequate.

"I actually screen the slide for her. I move it and go all the way through the specimen on the slide and we look for these groups of follicular cells. We need six groups of 10 follicular cells in each group. Once we have that, she'll say 'you have adequate specimen'. If we couldn't find the six groups with 10 follicular cells, I would go back into the room. The patient is still here and I would say to the radiologist 'we need to do some more passes'," said Kennedy.

Since the patient isn't having to come back for an additional visit if they didn't get what they needed, KRMC said it saves them money in the long run.

"Normally if we didn't have a pathologist look at it, it might be two days before they know if the specimen is adequate or not. Then we would have to call the patient back. It would take a while for the procedure to get scheduled again so it would probably be an extra week before we had another chance to get a specimen. It's definitely an advantage to the patient to be able to look at it immediately," said Kozera.

You may be wondering how they're the first in the state to use this technology? The lab manager said it was given to them by the UNMC to help improve patient care.

"We are always striving to find new ways and better ways to help patients. If we can help even one patient with this new technology, we feel that it's worth it," said Kozera.

To date, KRMC and UNMC have worked together on over 20 cases. They said they are looking forward to continuing to provide this level of care to patients in central Nebraska.