Heat Treatment for Asthma

Researchers at McMaster, a distinguished University in Ontario, Canada, have discovered a new treatment of asthma using heat to reduce the extent to which the airways in the lungs can constrict. Surrounding these airways are smooth muscle cells, which are in control of contraction and expansion. For asthma patients, smooth muscle tissue contracts beyond the normal limit for a healthy person, resulting in difficulty breathing, wheezing, and in severe cases suffocation. Dr. Gerard Cox and Dr. John Miller discovered bronchial thermoplasty by realizing that heating the smooth muscle tissue to 65 degrees Celsius destroys many of the surrounding cells. New loose connective tissue replaces the smooth muscle tissue and in doing so limits the extent to which the airways can constrict. A bronchoscope, a flexible tube, is inserted into the patient’s lungs via mouth or nose. A catheter with an expandable heat source at the tip is fed through the bronchoscope into the lungs and in the thirty minute procedure, radiofrequency energy kills about half of the smooth muscle cells surrounding the esophagus. The heat is hot enough to kill the smooth muscle cells, yet not too hot as to damage the esophagus permanently. After three short treatments, patients walk away with limited pain from the bronchoscope and relatively no pain from the actual treatment. Results are still being observed, but thus far patients experience a tremendous increase in quality of life and have a significant decrease in asthma symptoms. Tests have been in effect for little over two years; consequently lasting damage has yet to be discovered. Nevertheless, scientists are hopeful that bronchial thermoplasty will play a significant role in asthma treatments in years to come.

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