UHSM has carried out the first endoscopic procedure on the NHS in England using a pioneering technique which helps asthma patients breathe easier.
Senior Leader Dr Rob Niven and his team carried out the procedure at UHSM on a middle aged mum from Manchester, who has recovered well enough to go back at work.
The therapy, which uses heat, 'melts away' muscle in the airways blocking the passage of air. It is known as Bronchial thermoplasty and uses tiny probes on wires placed inside the lungs which emit bursts of radio waves lasting ten seconds each. The reduction of muscle is cause by heat generated in the process.
More than five million Britons suffer from asthma, including 1.4 million children. It causes 70,000 hospital admissions and 1,400 deaths each year.
Dr Niven explains: "Bronchial thermoplasty is the first non- drug treatment for asthma and 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 has responded well.It will be a little while before we are able to say its been a complete success, but I am cautiously optimistic.”
The technique has been the subject of eight years of research, for which Dr Niven and UHSM were lead centre. Doctors sedate patients and thread a bronchoscope - a lighted catheter - through the nose or throat and into the lungs. A wire basket on the tip is inflated to touch the airway walls, and radiofrequency waves are beamed through those wires.
The radio waves travel through an airway's thin lining without scarring it, while heating muscle underneath to 149F (65C). The heat specifically damages the muscle cells which don’t recover while other tissues are preserved.
Clinical trials of Bronchial thermoplasty have been conducted across multiple sites world-wide including Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Leicester, Birmingham and London within the UK. The results of these clinical trials demonstrate the long-term safety of Bronchial thermoplasty in patients with moderate to severe asthma. Patients have benefited from a significant reduction in asthma attacks, a reduction in Accident & Emergency department visits, a reduction in hospital admissions and days lost from work.