Reducing the size of the lung does not cure emphysema. Now I walk four miles every day. First of all, selected patients must agree to stop smoking. In addition, they must be willing to undergo two moths of pre-operative conditioning. This means they cannot have other problems like bronchitis, asthma or heart trouble.
Patients swallow a small catheter that measures pressure inside the chest cage.
But prevention will always be better than the cure. I am constantly amazed at the utter madness of some patients. They bury their heads in the sand. She had just returned from taking her mother to Florida and described the difficulties of the trip and her mother's poor health. Her mother, a long-term smoker, required constant oxygen due to emphysema.