 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Full enrollment of 350 asthma patients for the new trial has been completed, said Dr. Elliot Israel, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the research group. "They are in different phases of treatment, with some on their second or third sessions," Israel said. The participants will be followed for up to two years to assess the results of the treatment.
The therapy may also produce other beneficial effects besides just giving air more space to move in, Israel said. "Living muscle cells produce chemicals and biological signals that increase inflammation," he said. "It may also change some of the dynamics of connective tissue in the airway."
One important aspect of the method is that it has turned attention back to the role of muscle tissue in asthma, which has been more or less ignored for many years, said Charles G. Irvin, director of the Vermont Lung Center of the University of Vermont and co-author of an accompanying editorial. Attention has been focused on immunology and inflammation, rather than on airway muscle, he said.
Text Continues Below
Thermoplasty may not be the best way to affect that muscle tissue, Irvin said. "The current procedure is not trivial," he said. "The patient must come in three times, and there is risk every time you do a bronchoscopy."
The editorial proposes other possible methods, such as drugs that would paralyze muscles in the airways or delete muscle chemically.
"But the more important thing is that this procedure improves outcome," Irvin said. "That is exciting. It makes us rethink conventional wisdom."
Thermoplasty ultimately may be especially useful for asthma sufferers whose problem is severe enough to bring them to the emergency room, Irvin said.
"Maybe we can learn to do this in a less invasive way," Miller said. "Right now, it is a pretty stunning intervention with good results."
More information
Find out more about asthma at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2
|
.gif)
