Understanding How Bronchial Valves May Improve Health Status In Emphysema Patients

Main Category: Respiratory / Asthma
Article Date: 27 Nov 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Emphysema is a common pulmonary disease for which there is no cure, and which has very dramatic health consequences when severe. Harvey O. Coxson (Vancouver General Hospital, Canada) and colleagues are reporting results from a pilot study of a bronchial valve (Spiration IBV®), which is intended for use as a treatment for severe emphysema. The valve is designed to redirect airflow from diseased portions of the lung to healthier areas in order to achieve improved quality of life in these severely affected people.

High-resolution computed tomography (CT) images from 57 subjects with severe emphysema were obtained from nine North American clinical trial sites.

By applying high-resolution imaging before and after the valve procedures, researchers were able to accurately pinpoint the changes in inspired air volumes and understand the redirection of air from the diseased portions of the lung to the less affected areas.

The authors conclude that significant health status improvements, reported by subjects following bilateral bronchial valve treatment, are associated with regional lung volume changes measured using CT.

Steven C. Springmeyer, senior author of the study, summarises the importance of this data: "We were fortunate to merge multidetector CT and analytic software - two rapidly advancing technologies - to obtain objective data showing how the valve works in most patients. This has been of great value to us because while many patients and their doctors were seeing improvement, the classic ways of testing lung function were not measuring these changes in regional lung volumes."

TITLE OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Computed tomography assessment of lung volume changes after bronchial valve treatment

About the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ)

The European Respiratory Journal is the peer-reviewed scientific publication of the European Respiratory Society (more than 8,000 specialists in lung diseases and respiratory medicine in Europe, the United States and Australia).

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