Severe
Emphysema
Treatment Options
With the right treatment, you may breathe more easily, be more active, and enjoy a better quality of life¹.
Treatment Options for Emphysema
Together with your primary healthcare provider, which could be your general practitioner or pulmonologist, you can create a treatment plan that works for you.
Many people will use more than one kind of treatment to manage their symptoms. Different treatment combinations will work better for different people.
Treatment Options
Non-Invasive
Non-surgical options include COPD medicines, such as inhalers and oral steroids, stopping smoking programmes, pulmonary rehabilitation and oxygen therapy.
COPD medicines
These may include inhalers, oral steroids, antibiotics, or other prescription drugs.
Stop smoking programmes
Smoking cessation programmes help you quit smoking to prevent further damage to your lungs.
Rehabilitation
Your doctor can recommend a rehabilitation course to help you exercise your lungs and learn to breathe more efficiently.
Oxygen therapy
Emphysema reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches your bloodstream. Your doctor can prescribe you oxygen therapy if medication does not help you enough.
If you’ve stopped smoking, or are willing to stop, and medical management is no longer working, you may be suitable for a minimally invasive option called Zephyr® Valve treatment.
Minimally Invasive Bronchoscopic
Lung volume reduction procedure with endobronchial valves
Bronchoscopic or minimally invasive lung volume reduction procedure with endobronchial valves. Endobronchial valves such as the Zephyr Valves are a breakthrough technology that is clinically proven to help patients breathe easier, be more active, and enjoy a better quality of life.
The endobronchial valves are not another medication or surgery. It is a minimally invasive procedure that uses a bronchoscope to place small one-way valves in a targeted, diseased lobe of your lung where trapped air is causing shortness of breath. The endobronchial valves allow trapped air from your treated lung to escape while preventing air from entering that lung lobe and so hyperinflation in the lung is reduced. Reducing this hyperinflation allows the healthier parts of your lung to expand and function better.
Surgical
Lung volume reduction with surgery and bullectomy
The operation is usually performed during a procedure called VATS (video assisted thoracoscopic surgery). The surgeon makes a small cut in one side of your chest. A special instrument is used to both cut a diseased portion of the lung and staple the lung at the same time. The staple line seals the cut surface and prevents or reduces any air leaks.
Lung transplant
When the lungs are too damaged to benefit from surgery, certain patients may meet the criteria for lung transplantation surgery.
Which treatment option might be right for you?
Hear from doctors about procedures for reducing breathlessness.
Complications of the Zephyr Endobronchial Valve treatment can include but are not limited to pneumothorax, worsening of COPD symptoms, hemoptysis, pneumonia, dyspnea and, in rare cases, death.
Do you need more information?
Learn more in the patient information brochure.
Download brochure
Get Connected
To receive news and updates about severe COPD / emphysema and treatments including the Zephyr Valve, fill out the form and sign up for our free newsletter.
Please note: Industry regulations prohibit us from offering information or advice on the diagnosis of disease or choice of therapy to consumers or patients. Please contact your doctor or healthcare professional for this information or advice.
1. Criner, G et al. Am J Resp Crit Care Med. 2018 Nov 1;198(9):1151‒1164.