New Severe Asthma Treatment Improves Quality of Life

A new outpatient procedure that utilizes thermoplasty, radiofrequency-generated heat delivered to the airways to prevent narrowing, may provide severe chronic asthma sufferers relief.

The study involved the Alair System to preform the thermoplasty procedure and, if approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would become the the first non-pharmaceutical therapy to effectively treat severe asthma.

Nearly 300 patients with severe asthma who continued to experience asthma symptoms despite high doses of asthma medications participated. Half of the patients received the thermoplasty while the other half received a "sham treatment."

According to the press release, 79 percent of the patients treated with bronchial thermoplasty had meaningful improvement in their asthma related quality-of-life.

Lead author Mario Castro, M.D., M.P.H. of the Washington University School of Medicine stated in the press release that "patients treated with bronchial thermoplasty experience persistent asthma control over the year following treatment, based on improvement in the asthma quality of life, significant reduction in rates of severe asthma attacks and a reduction of emergency room visits for respiratory symptoms. He concluded "bronchial thermoplasty addresses an unmet medical need, offering significant advantages over the existing standard of care for patients suffering from severe asthma."

You can read more about it and see a video at the Alair website. The website includes a list of centers in the US that are participating in clinical trials.

If this sounds interesting to you, you may want to mention it to your asthma care provider and discuss it. This procedure is still investigational and is not yet licensed for use in the United States.