Larry Kaiser, MD, chief of general thoracic surgery at Penn, said the trial will determine which patients are the best candidates for surgical intervention and standardize procedural techniques to maximize surgical outcome. Emphysema Emphysema, a disease which affects two million Americans, is the fourth leading cause of death in this country. While generally associated with cigarette smoking, many people who suffer with it have never smoked. Conventional treatment is really quite limited. Also, loss of elastic recoil increases expiratory airway obstruction.
Surgeons believe the procedure works by improving the mechanics of breathing.
To identify the most diseased parts of the lung, a lung perfusion scan, a nuclear medicine test which has largely been used to diagnose pulmonary embolism, is done preoperatively. Since 1993, Penn has performed lung volume reduction surgery on more than 150 patients with severe emphysema. According to Kaiser, these surgical procedures have yielded promising results. At one year, patients seem to be doing very well. Lung volume reduction surgery may postpone the need for lung transplantation or serve as a bridge to it.