Colleen,
Open Sesame! Your efforts (very much appreciated, and very effective) have paid off. This morning, I received an email from Dr. Bartholmai of the Mayo Clinic, whose on-line technical paper initially spurred me to make this inquiry about new Mayo Clinic diagnostic technology for improved analysis of lung cancer CT scans. He apologized for the delay, indicated that I should expect to be contacted by IMBIO, the firm which will be commercializing the Mayo Clinic technology, and provided me with some further on-line leads in this area of technology which I will eagerly follow up. Shortly thereafter, I received an email from IMBIO, who confirmed that the Mayo Clinic's CANARY diagnostic technology is not yet FDA approved, but that they were open to further discussions on the broader testing of that technology. At their suggestion, I hope to have further conversations with IMBIO in the very near future.
Thank you again for your interest and your help. And when it comes to offering thanks, I will be following this up in the next few days with an email to Linda in appreciation of her wonderful comments and encouragement.

Alvin

Fantastic Alvin. I hope you'll keep us posted as your discussions continue and especially if you do the testing. I look forward to your ongoing participation on Connect as we grow the lung cancer group.

Colleen,
As an update to my previous comments, I had a very good telephone conversation today with the Chief Technology Officer of IMBIO. He was very knowledgeable, informative and generous with his time. It is now clear to me, based on the information he provided, that the CANARY technology, whose status I've been trying to clarify, is still under review by the FDA and is probably still a few years from being commercially available.

This really has addressed my concern. I had wanted to understand whether the CANARY technology was available, or was soon to be made available. As with any cancer patient, if it had been available and had already proved to be very prospective in enhancing the accuracy of long nodule diagnosis, I would have wanted to avail myself of it. But, as this is not yet the case, I believe I can feel assured that I'm not missing out on a medical opportunity. And while this technology is not available at this time, hopefully it will come to fruition in the not-too-distant future and will be of great value to those who can benefit from it.

I believe in "paying it forward", Colleen. Therefore, first I will keep you apprised of any significant developments that I become aware of. Second, if you believe that I can be of some assistance, as a non-expert, in providing a measure of guidance to others based on my own investigations (again, achieved with your considerable help), I would be very pleased to do so. In this regard, although my question regarding CANARY's availability has now been answered, I will nevertheless continue my research into the overall topic of lung nodule diagnosis and prognosis.

Best Regards,

Alvin