Statistics of Asthma patients in USA is sobering. In the United States, everyday 30,000 people have Asthma attacks; 40,000 people miss school or work because of this disease and 5,000 people are admitted to hospitals and 11 people eventually die. This is United State's most common and most costly disease. Unfortunately this disease has no perfect treatment. According to Dr. Mario Castro, a pulmonologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, a breakthrough is close at hand. Castro led a clinical trial testing, the first ever non drug treatment for severe asthma. It is called bronchial thermoplasty which actually prevents attacks. Bronchial thermoplasty delivers controlled heat to the lining of your windpipe. Castro said that it decreases the muscle and smooth muscle around your windpipe. Two patients Jenny and Michael McLeand, are among severe asthma sufferers. They both got the treatment of thermoplasty. The patients said that they experienced a huge change in their asthma symptoms. Two and a half years after the treatment, Jenny hasn't had to make a single visit to the ER and Michael says he can't put a price on his new-found quality of life. "I feel like I'm 18, 19 years old and doing anything, it feels like I can do anything I want to now. I've done things that I didn't think I would be able to do. The quality of life– the expenses I don't have to worry about anymore, just kind of the emergency room charges and the physician fees and the medication was expensive." Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, says anything new that will help these patients is an important advancement. "It's a new concept. Nobody up until now has thought of dealing with asthma by changing the anatomy of the lung.' But Edelman cautions there is a downside. "It's a complex procedure. Local physicians who treat asthma will not be ready to use the technique."
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