JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville unveiled the hospital’s newest cancer detection and removal technology at the 50th-anniversary celebration of having an endoscopy center partnered with Borland Groover.
The main attraction of the event was the unveiling of the Olympus Evis X-1, the newest and most advanced medical equipment that will be used to detect colon and stomach cancer. It’s available at all five Jacksonville locations.
Chief of Gastroenterology Dr. Vikram Gopal said the new technology goes to show that cancer detection has come a long way in the past 50 years.
“Our original X-rays and barium enemas were the only way of looking at the bowel. It has since progressed to where we have optical scopes where we look into the scope like a microscope and fiber optics,” Gopal said. “Today is a high-resolution video endoscopy. Real time. High-resolution. With that, we can detect many cancers early and we can treat these diseases a lot early before they advance throughout the body.”
So far this year, 26,000 cases of stomach cancer have been diagnosed in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. More than 10,000 people have died from stomach cancer.
Another technological advancement is the update to the camera and broadcast technology used in capsule endoscopy.
“Watch it tumble through 20 feet of the small intestine, looking at diseases like Crohn’s Disease, ulcerative colitis, polyps, and cancers and those can be identified non-invasively,” Gopal said.
This tool is used to apply sutures within the colon or stomach without having to cut a person open.
When it comes to colon cancer, more than 106,000 cases were reported in 2024.
Gopal said, unfortunately, cancer diagnoses happen far too often.
“We need more people to get screened and more people to talk to their doctors about their health and their family history, so it is not uncommon to diagnose significant cancer,” Gopel said.
People 45 years or older are advised to get a colonoscopy because doctors are finding that more people younger than 50 are being diagnosed with colon cancer.
Of course, the use of this advanced technology is only as good as the team in charge of operating it.
“We have a team of nurses, a team of technicians, a technologist who stands side-by-side with the physicians to help diagnose and treat life-threatening conditions,” Baptist Health President Nicole Thomas said.