Lung cancer continues to be a deadly killer. But a pair of medical technology firms, Xillix Technologies of Richmond, British Columbia, and Miravant Medical Technologies of Santa Barbara, Calif., are hoping to join two newly developed technologies that could offer a far more efficient way of catching lung cancer early and destroying it.

Xillix' contribution is an imaging device, called LIFE-lung, that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996. The technology uses certain wavelengths of laser light to illuminate the organ; cancerous (and even precancerous) tissues fluoresce in reddish hues. Miravant is one of several companies working on photodynamic therapy (PDT) for treating lung cancer. This technique involves injecting the patient with a photosensitive drug that concentrates in cancerous tissues; when activated by red laser light, the drug destroys these cells.