Lung Volume Reduction for Severe Emphysema by Stereotactic Ablative Radiation Therapy

Detailed Summary

Since medical therapies offer only modest palliation and minimal hopes for improved survival to COPD patients, surgical therapies have been designed that may provide greater benefits in selected patients. Lung transplantation, for example, clearly improves survival and quality of life in patients with end stage COPD. This comes at substantial economic cost, however, as well as the at the cost of complications that may result from the complex surgery and from life-long immunosuppression. In addition, nearly all lung transplants will fail within 5 years as a result of progressive bronchiolitis obliterans, which we currently have no way to prevent or treat. A second operation designed to treat severe COPD patients is lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS). This operation, designed for patients with predominant emphysema rather than chronic bronchitis, is among the most carefully studied operations ever developed. We believe that by reducing the volume of emphysematous lung with the precise target localization made possible by image-guided SABR, that we will be able to duplicate the benefits of surgical lung volume reduction with far less risk. We believe that this may represent a major advance in the therapy of emphysema - a highly prevalent disease. It may provide not only palliation but also increased survival, as does surgical lung volume reduction, in carefully selected patients.

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