BENGALURU: Bronchial Thermoplasty (BT), a medical advancement for severe, persistent asthmatic patients, has been adopted by Apollo Hospitals in the city, the hospital announced on Friday. This not-so-new therapy opens up constricted airways in severe asthmatic patients, which helps them breathe easier.
Over time, severe asthma can cause smooth muscle tissue lining the airways to thicken. This makes the airways narrower and harder for asthmatics to breathe. Bronchial Thermoplasty is a non-drug, endoscopic procedure that uses gentle heat to shrink the smooth muscles in lungs – the ones that tighten during asthma attacks and make it difficult to breathe.
It’s a therapeutic way to open your airways. “Severe asthma, as the name says, is an uncontrollable illness despite the regular medications. BT is a one-time mechanical measure that helps open up the tightened airways, makes sure it stays open and regulates smooth breathing in asthmatics,” said Dr Ravindra Mehta, Chief of Pulmonology and Critical Care, Apollo Hospitals, Jayanagar. He added that it is probably one of the best innovations in the history of severe asthmatics.
The procedure is carried out by the asthma consultant and it can be only undertaken if the patient is over 18 years old and has severe asthma not controlled with the usual asthma treatments. Three treatment sessions at approximately three -week intervals are recommended. Every one of these sessions is just for about an hour and at each time separate parts of lungs are treated.
Patients with smaller airways need to be extra cautious when exposed to allergens like pollution, smoke, hazardous gases, dust, weather changes, etc. “Bronchial Thermoplasty targets smooth muscle and controls severe asthma. It can help to control difficult asthma by regulating breathing in patients but can’t fully cure it. Patients still have to continue their medical dose after the therapy”, said Dr Srivatsa Lokeshwaran, pulmonologist, Aster hospital.