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Emphysema Treatment: Not To Be Confused With Subcutaneous Emphysema: Emphysema and Subcutaneous Emphysema have similar names but vastly differing meanings. Subcutaneous Emphysema happens when air gets in the tissues beneath the skin of the neck or chest walls. There are various causes of subcutaneous emphysema, including stabbing, blunt trauma or even bullet wounds. This is a fairly rare condition, but it does happen. Emphysema treatment on the other hand would be to treat the condition emphysema, which is completely different. Enphysema was long associated as a ’smokers disease’ and still is, to some degree. It is where the alveoli within the lungs lose their elasticity and thus block air-flow. Thus an Emphyzema treatment would be to take steps to help restore that air flow, which has nothing to do with subcutaneous emphysema.

New Emphysema Treatment To Restore Lungs: A study on new emphysema treatment at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is something that they hope will yield results in the future. The study is on the use of an ‘endobronchial valve’. This valves, when put into the diseased parts of the lungs will theoretically help restore the air-flow from these parts to healthier parts. The one-way nature of these valves ensures that the air can only flow into the healthy parts and not flow back into the diseased parts. This would be a huge step up from the conventional lung-reduction techniques which are generally invasive and in most cases have greater risks than the benefits associated with them. The system is called the Endobronchial Valve or Empysema Palliatation Trial, or VENT for short.

A New Emphysema Treatment Targeted at Symptoms: Another new emphysema treatment is targeted at the symptoms of the disease. Basing itself on the current best-option approach of lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS), the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is studying the next generation in such treatment. They are going for a less invasive approach that they call bronchoscopic lung reduction. As with the procedure studied at Iowa, UPMC is using special valves implanted into the lungs, though the difference is that these valves are designed to try to collapse the areas of a lung that are disproportionally affected, much like LVRS does. The benefits of such a study’s success would be clear – this less invasive procedure would only have a small fraction of the risks that LVRS would.

The Stages of Alternative Current Emphysema Treatment: Current Emphsema treatment varies according to the stage that it is in. First off, patients are advised to completely quit smoking, and take some medications that might help. However, for more serious cases, LVRS is the only real option, and if the risk is deemed acceptable, can be very beneficial. In the worst of cases, the only real viable option is lung transplants, which are hard to come by due to the shortage of donors and also the general complications that surround it. While none of the other Emphysem treatments comes as close to a cure as lung transplants do, as long as there are studies underway, there is still hope.

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