Do you have loved ones or counsel patients who suffer with intense asthma that can not be controlled with the combined use of inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta-agonists? The lives of such patients become endless carousel rides of exacerbations, emergency room visits, hospital stays and oral doses of corticosteroids. They often feel so badly trapped on this carousel that they limit their activities, both at home and at work. Such severe asthma patients might be helped significantly with Bronchial Thermoplasty (BT) – a special procedure performed by Dr. Fortune Alabi of the Florida Lung, Asthma & Sleep Specialists.

A Brief Explanation of BT

To understand how Bronchial Thermoplasty works, patients should know that people with severe asthma have a thicker-than-normal muscle surrounding their airways, the “airway smooth muscle.” Contraction, followed by swelling and excess mucus, can cause airways to narrow. The narrowed airways then cause shortness of breath, chest tightness, wheezing, and coughing.

BT is an outpatient procedure that utilizes equipment called the Alair™ System, which uses mild heat to reduce the amount of excess smooth-muscle tissue in the airways. This procedure limits the ability of airways to contract or narrow. Once the patient is properly sedated, Dr. Alabi guides a bronchoscope into a patient’s airways. The specialized catheter heats the airways to 149 degrees Fahrenheit, using radio-frequency (RF) energy. Fear not. According to a recent article in the New York Times, this temperature is actually cooler than most people’s morning cup of coffee. The result is a beautiful thing — easier breathing!

We invite you to read a  previous blog which explains BT in six steps. Typically, the procedure is actually accomplished in three sessions, each three weeks apart.  The first procedure treats the airways of the right lower lobe, followed by the second procedure which treats the airways of the left lower lobe. Lastly, the final procedure treats the airways in both upper lobes.

Afterwards, patients report how much less constricted they feel. Some patients still continue their maintenance dosages of beta-agonists, but others are able to eventually abandon at least some asthma medications altogether.

The remarkable point is that most BT patients enjoy a higher activity level.  They find they have more stamina to accomplish more work and play goals than their previous self-limiting capabilities.  Additionally, BT relieves much of  the stressful fear of the frequent attacks on the uncontrolled asthma carousel of emergency room trips and oral corticosteroids, and hospital stays.

Extensive clinical trials proved that patients, treated with BT, had fewer asthma attacks and emergency room visits. They got off that carousel. BT empowered them to improve their quality of life, although some of them continued maintenance asthma medication to control airway inflammation. For more information, we invite you to visit www.floridalungdoctors.com, and go to the “blog” page. Look to the right of the page, under “Resources,” and you will see a fact sheet, with more complete descriptions, diagrams and photographs of the equipment behind this cutting-edge, 21st century procedure.

Fine clinical studies of this procedure can be investigated at the Cleveland Clinic Journal Of Medicine, where they summarized this drug free procedure. “Asthma now has a new treatment, but it isn’t for everybody. Called bronchial thermoplasty, it is reserved for patients whose asthma is severe and refractory, as it involves three sessions of bronchoscopy, each lasting up to 1 hour, during which the smooth muscle layer is methodically ablated from the airway using radio-frequency energy.”

The Florida Lung Doctors hope you look into BT.  At the Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Centers, BT is improving the quality of life for asthma patients, one lobe at a time.