Lung Surgery Study Renews Therapy Debate
B O S T O N, July 26 -- A pioneer in a surgical procedure that improves the quality of life of patients with emphysema says an ongoing government study testing the method should end because it is costing taxpayers millions of dollars and tens of thousands of patients’ lives.
Dr. Joel Cooper, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, is calling for the ban because a new British study shows that surgery he forged — the removal of damaged parts of emphysema patients’ lungs — improves patients’ ability to breathe, their quality of their life and their ability to walk longer distances.
Cooper says the research published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, one of more than 30 reports of more than 2,000 operations, provides further unequivocal evidence of the benefits of lung reduction therapy and the need to stop the U.S.-based randomized trial of 2,500 patients determining the value of the surgery.
But those running the study, called the National Emphysema Treatment Trial, say the 7-year, multimillion-dollar trial is necessary since many questions remain about the $30,000-surgery, including who will benefit from it and whether it will reduce mortality rates.
Surgery Improves Quality of Life
In the British study, surgeons at the Royal Bromptom Hospital, in London, randomly assigned 48 patients to either have the lung reduction surgery or continued medical and drug treatment to compare the two methods. Doctors were not aware of the group to which the patient was assigned.
The British physicians, led by Dr. Duncan Geddes, a professor in the department of respiratory therapy, found that the surgery provided the patients with enhanced breathing, longer distances walked, and a better quality of life compared to the non-surgical patients. It was not clear if the surgery helps the emphysema patients live longer.
Emphysema is a form of chronic pulmonary disease that affects approximately 2 million Americans at an annual cost of $2.5 billion. In patients with this condition, the walls between the tiny air sacs in the lungs, called alveoli, become damaged and the lungs are less able to expand and contract, making breathing difficult.
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