Final Results from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial

Defined groups of patients benefited from lung-volume-reduction surgery, but the high costs of this procedure necessitate careful patient selection.

Lung-volume-reduction surgery involves resection of diseased portions of emphysematous lung, which presumably enables nondiseased portions to function more effectively. In the National Emphysema Treatment Trial, 1218 patients with advanced emphysema were randomized to undergo lung-volume-reduction surgery or medical treatment. In 2001, the researchers reported unacceptably high mortality rates in a subgroup of 70 surgically treated patients with very low FEV₁ (≤20% of predicted) and several other high-risk characteristics (Journal Watch Sep 25 2001). Now, the findings for the entire cohort have been published.

Mortality was significantly higher in the surgical group than in the medical group at 90 days (7.9% vs. 1.3%) but was 26% in both gro…

Reviewing Author

Allan S. Brett, MD