Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Lishan Aklog, CEO of Lucid Diagnostics, discusses the current diagnostic landscape for esophageal cancer and the need for early detection. The current diagnostic tool, an upper endoscopy, is an invasive procedure requiring anesthesia.  The EsoGuard, a noninvasive simple cell collection procedure, uses molecular diagnostics to detect pre-cancerous cells within minutes. This test is particularly beneficial for screening those with risk factors such as chronic heartburn, being male, a smoker, or obese.   Lishan explains, "To prevent it, you have to pick it up at the pre-cancer stage because, unlike many other cancers where detecting earlier stage cancer, stage one cancer is a victory with a real potential for a cure, such as in breast cancer and colon and others, that's not the case here. You have about a 50% likelihood of dying even if you pick up esophageal cancer at the earliest stages. So, our mission and the opportunity here is to prevent about 16,000 cancer deaths a year by detecting the pre-cancerous