Dr. Alexander Mulamula Uses New Treatment for Lung Cancer

Dr. Alexander Mulamula, head of the pulmonology department at Ochsner Baton Rouge, recently started using a revolutionary new technology that will enable earlier detection and treatment of lung cancer, potentially saving thousands of lives.

According to 2025 statistics from the National Cancer Institute, lung and bronchus cancers are the deadliest forms of cancer in the United States. They accounted for 20% of American cancer deaths in 2025. It was also the third most common cancer, with 226,650 new cases diagnosed in 2025. The American Medical Association estimates 20% of lung cancer deaths are preventable, but only 30% of lung cancer cases are diagnosed during the early stages of the disease. Last year, Mulamula performed the first procedure at Ochsner Baton Rouge using the Ion Robotic Bronchoscopy. By March of this year, he had performed 200 of them. He is excited about what it can offer patients.

“The Ion robot gives us state-of-the-art capability to access lung nodules of both size and location that were previously difficult or impossible to access through the airways,” Mulamula said. “Safety, reliability and diagnostic accuracy are always a premium, and the Ion delivers on all accounts.”

Scopes are often used to explore organs and take tissue samples. Colonoscopies are important screening tools to detect colon cancer and remove precancerous polyps. Endoscopies examine the upper GI tract. Bronchoscopies target the lungs, but they pose a challenge not seen in other scope procedures: they are working on a moving target. A colon is stationary during a colonoscopy, but patients need to breathe to survive, so the lungs keep moving as the doctor is trying to examine them and take tissue samples for a biopsy.

“A lung is dynamic like a sponge,” Mulamula said.

In the past, needles would often be inserted through the skin guided by CT scans.  Mulamula said the challenges posed by navigating the moving lungs this way made doctors wait until the tumors were large enough to safely biopsy them. This posed another problem because it prevented doctors from diagnosing, staging and treating lung cancer sooner.

The Ion Robotic Bronchoscopy enables earlier treatment of lung cancers. Just like all cancers, the earlier the detection and treatment, the better the outcome. Every six weeks of delayed treatment lowers a patient’s five-year survival rate by 14%.

The Ion works with an ultra thin, highly maneuverable catheter. It allows doctors to reach small nodules in all 18 segments of the lung with precision. This is important because 70% of nodules are in the far areas of the lung. It has a flexible, steerable tip allowing doctors to collect tissue samples from multiple angles. The greater precision Ion offers allows the doctors to collect better samples, which allows them to learn more about the individual tumor, which allows them to use more targeted therapies in treating that tumor.

Before the bronchoscopy happens, the patient receives CT scans that the Ion’s software uses to create 3D airway trees of the lung and navigation pathways. It works similar to a GPS, giving doctors turn-by-turn directions. Unique sensing technology allows doctors to carefully and safely control the catheter position even while the breathing lung is moving. It is an outpatient procedure that takes approximately one hour.

The precision offered by Ion also reduces the risk of complications during the biopsy. Traditional biopsy methods on the lung have a complication rate of 20-25% compared to 1-3% with robotic procedures. It also allows doctors to simultaneously make a diagnosis and stage the cancer (determining the size of the tumor and how far it has spread). This in turn shortens the time frame for a patient to proceed to surgery. In the past, there could be weeks between the diagnosis and the staging, leading to a longer wait for treatment. And when every six weeks of delayed treatment significantly decreases the survival rate, that’s a big difference.

The Kenyan-born Mulamula has been with Ochsner Baton Rouge for 15 years after completing a fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine. When Mulamula is not working, he spends time at his rural home about 40 minutes outside of Baton Rouge. He is married and has three children and one grandchild. He calls himself a “homesteader” and keeps cats, dogs, rabbits and sheep on his property.

Mulamula enjoys the sense of community he feels in the region, which reminds him of how much his work means to people. In one instance, a neighbor thanked him for performing a successful surgery on his uncle.

“It gives me immense pride,” Mulamula said.