The biologic procedure's safety lends itself to repeat sessions as additional areas of lung deteriorate. One appealing but as yet untested strategy: perform biologic LVR, measure lung function, then decide if the patient needs to come back in a few weeks for further LVR to optimize results.
The patient with the best response to treatment to date is swimming for exercise and still going strong 14 months after treatment. To physicians familiar with severe COPD, that's nothing short of miraculous, he said. But investigators haven't figured out why he's doing so well while some others who underwent extensive treatment didn't have major responses.
“We still have a long way to go,” Dr. Celli emphasized.
Nonetheless, the future of nonsurgical interventions looks bright for patients with severe COPD, who traditionally have had few options other than the faint prospect of lung transplantation. Dr. Celli offered a final bit of advice to his fellow chest physicians: “Go learn bronchoscopy.”
'Maybe we'll be able to induce physiologic changes and gain time for these patients.' DR. CELLI