Rainbow WH Lau¹, Hangxue Lou²

¹Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, China;²SHC Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company

Editor’s note

The 2nd Bronchoscopic Ablation Summit (BAS 2023) hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) was held successfully in Hong Kong from October 26-27, 2023. Gathering experts from worldwide, the two-day summit presented the latest techniques in advanced navigation and robotic bronchoscopy, imaging and ablation technologies.

During the summit, Dr. Rainbow WH Lau from the Prince of Wales Hospital delivered a speech on “Mobile CT Scanners”. We are honored to invite Dr. Lau for a brief interview to share with us some take-home message of her speech as well as her enduring passion about thoracic surgery and its future direction (Video 1, Figure 1).

Figure 1 Picture with Dr. Lau (right)

Expert introduction

Dr. Rainbow WH Lau (Figure 2) graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and obtained Fellowships of the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. She is currently working as Consultant in Cardiothoracic Surgery in Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong.

She specializes in minimally invasive thoracic surgery, interventional bronchoscopy, endobronchial ablation of pulmonary neoplasms, thoracic trauma, and innovative approaches to thoracic surgery. Her expertise extends to Image-guided Electromagnetic Navigation Bronchoscopy (iENB) and minimally invasive lung resection within hybrid operating room settings (iVATS).

Dr. Lau has co-authored over 90 articles in international journals and actively participates in clinical trials related to navigational bronchoscopy and endobronchial ablation.

Figure 2 Dr. Rainbow WH Lau

Interview

SHC: As a reputable expert in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, your primary focus lies in minimally invasive thoracic surgery, interventional bronchoscopy and thoracic trauma. Could you share what initially motivated you to specialize in these particular fields?
Dr. Lau: You are too kind to say that I'm a reputable surgeon. First of all, I was interested in becoming a doctor since I was very young. And during medical school, I knew that I'm the kind of person that like to do things with my hands, so that's why I chose the specialty of being a surgeon. And, I liked the physiology of the hearts and lungs when I was in medical school. During my early times in the surgical training, my first rotation was in the cardiothoracic surgery in Prince of Wales Hospital, and I was given a lot of opportunities to operate. And there are great mentors like Professor Ng who gave us lots of innovations, insights and opportunities, and that's why I think this is my right place to spend the rest of my career. It's something that I like to do no matter how difficult it is, I still have a passion in it.

SHC: During the “Image Guidance” part of the summit, you delivered a presentation on “Mobile CT Scanners”. Could you please provide a concise overview of your speech and share some key takeaways with our readers?
Dr. Lau: My talk was around like fifteen odd minutes, and we just shared some of our experience in Prince of Wales Hospital. To be honest, the whole bronchoscopic ablation therapy is a very new technology, and everything is changing and developing. And, about the use of mobile CT, I think what we are trying to do is (to find out) whether we can use smaller machine to do the same thing. It's like in the past, if you want to do some very simple calculation, you need to have a very giant a computer whereas nowadays, you just use your mobile phone to do very complex work. So, I think with the interest in lung therapies from the industries, I am sure that they could do something to minimize the size of the machine, reduce radiation to give us the optimal, imaging that we need to provide such therapy.

SHC: As one of the discussants at the “Recorded Live Session”, what do you believe is the significance of doctors sharing their patient experiences at conferences for the advancement of this field?
Dr. Lau: What we are trying to do, be it minimally invasive surgery, bronchoscopic surgery, better pain control, everything is actually about benefiting the patients. So no matter what we do, we need to see whether it changed the patients’ experience. So, We're glad that one of our very grateful patients, he always agreed to come to share his experience with us. Especially he has a very complex disease, and he had experience with already stage of the art minimally invasive surgery, and then we moved to provide him with something even more advanced. And we're glad to know that the things that we have done and intervention that we have changed actually have a great impact on the patient. And in fact, he said that if he has to give score on the magnitude of the surgery done on him, (for) the minimally invasive lung resection, he'll give it score of four over ten. So it still has some impact on his life. Whereas for the bronchoscopic microwave ablation that he had twice, It's only very minimal. He said it almost feels like nothing at all. So we are glad that it, all this hard work from basic science, engineering, surgical advancement actually translates to patients, benefits.

SHC: Throughout your career, have there been any bronchoscopic ablation-related cases or experiences that have been particularly memorable or instructive for you?
Dr. Lau: I must say we are learning from every single case that we are doing. Be it from the very beginning, we just started off with the first few cases, or the more complex cases that we are ablating multiple lung lesions. Or occasionally, we do have cases that there are complications. No therapy is perfect. They are bounded to be some risks and benefits. So I think it's the whole (new) learning process and it gives me a very good experience in how we can keep on doing better and improve ourselves so that we can bring benefit to patients.

SHC: As our programme highlights the significance of catching up on the latest developments and shaping the future of bronchoscopic ablation, looking towards the future, what do you believe is the most important direction for the study of bronchoscopic ablation techniques.
Dr. Lau: I can't just think of, like, one most single important thing, but, it’ the development of technology. It's not just one. It's not just the ablation catheter. It's a combination of all the technologies that we brought in here today in the Ablation Summit, the navigation, the imaging, and the delivery of energy. And the therapy doesn't just stop there. We still need to follow-up the patients. I can't think of one single most important thing that we need to do. It’s a combination of everything.

SHC: Over the years, you have published many excellent research papers and continued to dig deeply on innovations in thoracic surgery. So, what is the secret to maintain such a high level of academic enthusiasm？
Dr. Lau: Again, it's not just me. A single surgeon won't be able to do all these things. You operate, you look into research, you write. It’s impossible. This is a team effort. I'm glad that (we have) Profess Ng. He's kind of like the engine of the train, and we are in the middle and following him. And everyone moves forward together to build up this very strong academic profile. And because of the inspiration that he gave us, and the opportunity of publishing, it's a positive feedback. When you are able to do something and get recognition from the international community, that gives us more positive feedback and, encourage us to do more and do better.