Department News

People in Arizona with severe asthma now have a new cutting edge option for treatment.  University of Arizona Medical Center is the first hospital in Arizona to offer bronchial thermoplasty.  Dr. James Knepler, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine will offer this procedure to patients with asthma that wheeze despite the benefits of other more familiar asthma treatments.  Bronchial thermoplasty is a novel, non-drug procedure that can help control severe asthma.

More than 20 million Americans have asthma, and some of these have cases severe enough that common asthma medications don’t offer the relief that they need.  Asthma affects the lungs in two ways.  First, inflammation inside the lung’s airways narrows the channels making breathing difficult.  A second effect is that the muscle tissue that spasms when the lungs are irritated can increase in thickness with repeated attacks making airways increasingly narrow.  This new procedure uses radiofrequency waves to heat up and shrink the muscle layer preventing airways from restricting as much during an attack. 

Bronchial thermoplasty is an outpatient procedure and was approved by the FDA in 2010 for adults with severe asthma that is not well controlled on current medications.  California-based Asthmatx Inc. estimates its Alair system could target up to 2 million adults.