Millions of asthma sufferers could breathe easier thanks to a breakthrough operation performed on the NHS for the first time.
Doctors at Wythenshawe hospital in Manchester performed a technique called bronchial thermoplasty on a middle-aged woman.
It is the first time the treatment – which involves burning away lung tissue blocking the airway – has been performed in the UK and only the second time in Europe.
People with asthma have more smooth muscle circling their airways than average as well as some inflammation. The airways constrict further during an attack, leaving the sufferer gasping for breath.
Common medications, delivered through an inhaler, relieve the airway inflammation.
However, the operation tackles the extra smooth muscle itself.
In bronchial thermoplasty a tube is placed through the mouth and threaded through into the bronchial canals in the lungs. No incision is needed.
The tube has an electrode array at the tip that then opens out so that its four arms are in contact with the airway. This delivers a controlled burst of radio energy for 10 seconds to heat the smooth muscles.
Asthma
The heat reduces the smooth muscle in about a third of the lungs. A further two treatments are needed to complete the operation.
The operation is the first non-drug therapy for the condition, which affects 5.2m people in Britain and kills 1,400 people a year.
The treatment performed at Wythenshawe hospital last week was so successful that surgeons are hoping to carry out more over the next few months. Other hospitals are also expected to introduce it.
Dr Rob Niven, consultant chest physician, and his team carried out the surgery at Wythenshawe Hospital on the patient who is now recovering at home.
The procedure took less than an hour and involved putting the patient, from Greater Manchester, under light sedation.
He said: ‘It may be a new option for patients with severe asthma who have symptoms despite use of drug therapies.
‘The operation went according to plan and our patient is responding well. We are expecting a significant improvement in her condition over the next few months.’
Asthma is one of the world’s most common diseases, and causes airways to the lungs to tighten. It also causes 70,000 hospital admissions in Britain each year.
During a year-long global trial, sufferers showed a decrease in asthma attacks, an increase in days with no asthma symptoms, and a reduction in inhaler use. They also exhibited a general improvement in their quality of life.
The trial patients experienced around 10 fewer asthma attacks per year, were free of their asthma symptoms an average of 86 additional days per year, and required significantly less rescue medication.
- Similar posts
- New treatment for asthma (11.5%)
- New treatment for asthma (10.5%)
- Taste buds in lungs could ease asthma (9.4%)
- COPD update (8.6%)
- Bronchial thermoplasty treatment for asthma (8.2%)
A large international study has revealed several genetic variants which are linked to people with asthma.
In all, more than 500,000 tests were performed on the genes of 10,000 children and adults with the condition, and 16,000 non-asthmatics.
The Imperial College-led research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, could point to new targets for drugs.
Experts said gene testing could not predict who would get the condition.
One in seven children in the UK suffers from asthma, which causes the airways to become irritated and narrow, making it harder for them to breathe.
The reasons why people develop the disease are not yet fully clear, although scientists suspect a roughly equal mixture of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors.
The latest genetic variants discovered by the international research appeared in more than a third of children with asthma.
However, the gene with the strongest impact on children did not affect people who developed asthma in adulthood, suggesting that the two versions of asthma may differ biologically.
Some of the genes identified are involved in the body’s system for telling the immune system about damage to the lining of the airways, while others appear to control how quickly the airways heal.
Professor William Cookson, from Imperial College London, who co-ordinated the research, said: “Asthma is a complex disease in which many different parts of the immune system can become activated.
“Our study now highlights targets for effective asthma therapies and suggests that therapies against these targets will be of use to large numbers of asthmatics in the population.”
However, parents have been warned that although genes make a contribution to asthma development, there is no way to use a genetic test to predict the condition.
Leanne Metcalf, from Asthma UK, said: “This unique study helps us to understand in much more detail how the genetic side of things works.
“Importantly, it has also shown that genetic testing does not help to predict who is susceptible to developing asthma, meaning that early diagnosis and intervention, and effective treatment for everyone who is affected by asthma, are even more vital.
“However the most exciting part is that these results will now help to ensure that scientists are able to focus their research on the most influential targets for asthma, with the important long-term aim of preventing a condition which is responsible for the deaths of three people every day.”
Drug research at a Norfolk university has found the asthma pill to be “as effective” as the inhaler.
The University of East Anglia’s study on 650 local patients, aged 12 to 80, found 80% could take the more user-friendly pill instead.
The results could give more options to asthma sufferers, with many finding inhalers a nuisance to use.
The research was conducted on people in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambrigeshire.
Approximately 5.4m people in the UK have asthma, with 1.1m of those being children.
“The tablet may provide an alternative that can be as effective as an inhaler,” said Dr Stanley Musgrave, co-author of the research which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“What the study basically says to a doctor or nurse when working with a patient is that this is something they may want to consider as well as the standard therapies.
“The medication is available on the NHS, it’s just been a lower or a second choice,” he added.
The once-a-day tablets, called leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs), can be commonly found under the brand names Accolate and Singulair.