Learn about the bronchial thermoplasty procedure:

Doctors at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) are delivering heat directly to the source to treat patients with severe asthma – a respiratory disease that causes the airways in the lungs to narrow, making it difficult to breathe. Bronchial thermoplasty, an innovative technique that uses radiofrequency, helps patients breathe easier by lessening the severity of asthma attacks and preventing future attacks. ORMC is the first hospital in Central Florida, and currently the only, offering the option for the more than one million across the country struggling with the chronic condition characterized by persistent shortness of breath, emergency room visits, hospitalizations and asthma-related deaths.

Bronchial thermoplasty with the Alair® System, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, treats severe asthma by going to the source.  The lungs consist of multiple airway passages that are surrounded by airway smooth muscle.  For people with asthma, this airway smooth muscle is more susceptible to triggers and irritants that can cause it to constrict and reduce the amount of air that flows through the lungs.

“Bronchial thermoplasty remodels the airway smooth muscle,” said Mark Vollenweider, MD, MPH, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at ORMC. “Using a small catheter we deliver controlled energy to the airways of the lung to reduce the amount of excessive airway smooth muscle.  The reduction decreases the muscle’s ability to constrict the airways, resulting in a decreased occurrence of asthma attacks. It is the constricting or tightening of the muscles that causes breathing problems when someone is having an asthma attack.”

The cycle of treatment, includes three procedures occurring three weeks apart.

“This is a game changer for patients with severe asthma,” said Dr. Vollenweider. “This is the first type of asthma treatment I have seen that changes someone’s life in such a remarkable way with almost no complications and with low long-term risk.”

Patient outcomes have been positive and lives restored, sometimes soon after the first procedure within the treatment cycle.

“Many patients are able to discontinue breathing medications and some are able to stop using steroids,” said Dr. Vollenweider. “This is significant improvement to their health because medications to treat severe asthma often lead to diabetes, osteoporosis, and other medical conditions.”

Research shows the life changing results maybe lasting.

“Ten years of research and seven years of safety data shows the benefits from a complete treatment cycle remain five to seven years later,” said Dr. Vollenweider. “Patients may experience a 32 percent reduction in the number of asthma attacks and a 73 to 84 percent reduction of hospital and emergency department visits.”

A groundbreaking treatment option like bronchial thermoplasty is especially significant given the unknowns of asthma.

“We don’t know exactly why asthma occurs,” said Dr. Vollenweider. “It is believed to be the result of bronchial smooth muscles constricting and/or inflammation of the airways.   The unknowns make treatment a challenge. Inhalers, steroids and other medications work well for some, but not so well for others.”

Asthma is considered a serious public health problem, impacting nearly 25 million Americans. The condition is one of the top five chronic diseases globally, along with heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. In patients with severe asthma, traditional treatment methods including inhalers and daily steroid medications do not always prevent frequent and life-threatening asthma attacks. In 2007, asthma resulted in approximately 12.8 million people experiencing asthmas attacks, 1.75 million emergency room visits, 456,000 hospitalizations and 3,447 asthma-related deaths. Severe asthma can adversely impact the quality of life for patients including limiting or impacting their ability to complete daily living tasks, work, and hobbies and enjoy other life enrichments.

In an interview, Mark Vollenweider, MD, MPH, a pulmonary and critical care specialist, Orlando Regional Medical Center, discussed COPD and asthma: causes, symptoms, the importance of diagnosis, and treatments, including bronchial thermoplasty – a non-drug procedure for severe persistent asthma that mildly heats airway walls. Heating reduces some of the extra muscle present in the airways and may allow airways to stay more open and help patients breathe better.

Dr. Vollenweider also discussed environmental and lifestyle changes patients can make to breathe easier.

Healthy Connections – COPD

Rumi Ahmed Khan

Dr. Khan joins Orlando Health after serving five years as an Assistant Professor  and Director of the Divisional Lung Cancer Collaborative Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Zablocki Veterans Administration Medical Center in Milwaukee. During that time, he was also Director of the Smoking Cessation Program at Clinical Cancer Center. As part of the faculty of the cancer center, he developed a lung cancer program which included screening, diagnostic work-up and follow up with patients undergoing lung resections and chemotherapy.

Dr. Khan’s academic and clinical experience will be well utilized as a pulmonary critical care faculty physician and at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) and MD Anderson Cancer Center – Orlando. He is also an Associate Professor, Department of Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Florida.

After completing his medical degree at Chittagong Medical College at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, Dr. Khan received a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in molecular biology and genetics and basic sciences at Wayne State University (WSU)School of Medicine in Detroit. This was followed by his residency in internal medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and Queens Hospital Center in New York. He returned to WSU School of Medicine to complete a fellowship in Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and served as Chief Fellow during his final year. He was one of only six fellows in the country to be awarded the Glaxo Smith Kline Pulmonary Fellowship Award and Research Grant in 2004-5.

His clinical and research focus has involved Critical Care, General Pulmonology, Pulmonary Hypertension as well as a collaborative approach to lung nodules, cancer diagnosis and management. Dr Khan took particular interest in   radon awareness in prevention of Lung Cancer. He notes significant progress in the past 10-12 years in offering a variety of medications to patients with pulmonary hypertension, making a huge impact on the quality of life of these patients. Dr. Khan initially focused his research on the role of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) and their potential role in treating lung cancer.

Dr. Khan will be seeing in-patients on our newly formed Pulmonary Service at the Orlando Health Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine Specialists practice with four attending pulmonologists available to see out-patients at 21 West Columbia Street, 2^nd Floor. Referrals may be made by calling 321-841-PULM (7856).