Friday, May 29, 2009

Bronchial Thermoplasty for Asthma


Have you heard of Bronchial Thermoplasty? There's a company called Asthmatx that has a system (a medical device) called Alair. This device is being studied for the treatment of asthma in the AIR2 trial (which is currently closed to new patients).

The objective of bronchial thermoplasty is to reduce the airway smooth muscle in all airways reachable by the bronchoscope in hopes of reducing the ability for the airways to constrict. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? The picture almost looks like you're performing angioplasty in a bronchus. You won't be placing any stents in the lung with this device.

I've always had a fascination for medical devices. As an engineering student at MIT, I thought that I'd be working on innovative medical devices. Instead of pursing a career in biomedical engineering, I chose a carrer in medicine. Now, I get to blog about medical devices!

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