'Lung-burning' gives hope for asthma patients

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 29 March 2007

Scientists have developed the first non-drug therapy for asthma in the biggest advance in treatment of the condition for a decade.

Researchers who treated patients with moderate to severe asthma by inserting a probe into their lungs and "burning" the muscle tissue found it cut their asthma attacks by a half.

No drug treatment developed in the past 10 years has achieved an equivalent improvement. The scientists described the results as "very encouraging" and said the treatment offered a "new option" for patients whose condition was poorly controlled by drugs.

More than five million patients in Britain suffer from asthma and around 70,000 are admitted to hospital each year with life-threatening attacks. If proved in further studies, the new treatment, called bronchial thermoplasty, could help reduce the 1,000 deaths from asthma a year. more