Bronchoscopic Interventions for Emphysema

Emphysema is a lung disease caused by chronic inhalation of irritants and characterized by the destruction of alveolar walls, loss of tissue elasticity, abnormal and irreversible hyperinflation of the lung, and difficulty breathing. As a consequence of alveolar destruction and in addition to the loss of gas exchange, emphysematous regions of the lung trap air and expand, crowding out healthy portions of the lung and reducing the patient’s overall expiratory capacity.

While there is no cure for emphysema, a class of minimally invasive therapies called bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) is being developed. BLVR techniques are based on the proven theory that reducing the volume of the diseased portion of the lung will allow expansion and increased ventilation of the remaining healthy portions. Despite their promise, these therapies have found only moderate success in restoring respiratory capacity due to certain anatomical variations common in emphysema. These variations generate a phenomenon called collateral ventilation, which renders the best treatments ineffective for up to 75% of the more than 75 million emphysema patients worldwide.

Our team is working to develop multiple bronchoscopic interventions that mitigate the effects of collateral ventilation to expand the treatable population of emphysema patients.