Doctors Heat Up Asthma
Reported October 12, 2009
ST. LOUIS (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Fifteen-million Americans have asthma — narrowing and inflammation of the airways that can be uncomfortable, even fatal in the most serious cases. This fall, the FDA is looking at a new drug-free treatment for patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma doctors are using heat to open up patients’ airways.
It was a routine Mike and Jenny McLeland couldn’t get through the day without.
“At least once a month was bad enough to go to the emergency room, but I’d have asthma attacks two or three times a day,” Mike told Ivanhoe. “I was using my inhaler constantly.”
“It doesn’t matter how many asthma attacks I’ve had in my lifetime,” Jenny told Ivanhoe. “I still start to feel kind of panicky. What if I can’t get to my inhaler in time? What if I can’t get help in time?”
The couple was among the first to test a new treatment called bronchial thermoplasty, which uses heat to alleviate asthma. Doctors send a catheter into the lungs. Wires deliver radiofrequency energy to the constricted muscles around the windpipe.
“This is a permanent treatment where we actually alter the smooth muscle,” Mario Castro, M.D., a pulmonologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., told Ivanhoe. “We decrease the muscle that’s surrounding the windpipe, so it’s a much more long-lasting treatment and more effective treatment for these patients.”
In an international clinical trial, patients showed an average 32 percent reduction in severe asthma symptoms. Jenny’s cut her asthma meds by 50 percent Mike doesn’t need his at all.
“I’m not using my inhalers,” Mike said. “I’m off my steroid inhaler. I haven’t used my Provental for the last three months.”
Now, Mike and Jenny are enjoying something they never thought they could have — an active lifestyle that gets better with every stride.
Doctors sedate patients for the procedure, and it’s done in sets of three that take 45 minutes each. Doctors say the heat treatment is intended for patients with severe asthma that’s not helped by medication. The treatment can temporarily worsen symptoms before they get better.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Judy Martin
Office of Public Affairs
Washington University School of Medicine
St. Louis, MO
(314) 286-0105