[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Zephyr EBV Therapy is Subject of Numerous Presentations at 2013 European Respiratory
Society Annual Congress
September 9, 2013, Barcelona, Spain – Pulmonx, an emerging leader in interventional pulmonology, announced that its endobronchial valve (EBV) therapy is a topic of eight different scientific presentations throughout the course of the European Respiratory Society Annual Congress. ERS is a prestigious event dedicated to reporting significant advances in the treatment of respiratory disease and promotion of lung health. These latest presentations add to an impressive amount of high quality scientific data on Zephyr® EBV therapy and use of the Chartis assessment system.
Two key presentations provide encouraging results from the treatment of a group of high risk patients with very low FEV1 and confirmation of earlier studies showing statistically significant improvements in long term survival in patients who responded to EBV therapy.
One poster titled “Endoscopic lung volume reduction in high risk patients with FEV1?20%” was presented earlier today as part of the ERS technical program. Endoscopic lung volume reduction (ELVR) using EBV implants is an established therapeutic measure aimed at improving the impaired quality of life of patients with severe COPD. However, patients with FEV1 <20% predicted are often excluded from treatment as they are considered too fragile to treat with surgery or even interventional therapies due to their diminished lung capacity. This retrospective analysis shows that patients with FEV1<20% predicted may improve from EBV implantation with target zones identified by perfusion scan. “Physicians would historically be reluctant to perform an invasive procedure on these late stage patients, which has left them with few treatment options. With these new findings we have shown that valves can be placed successfully in patients with FEV1 lower than 20% predicted and yield significant improvements in lung function and exercise capacity, without serious complications,” stated senior author Prof. Dr. med. Lutz Freitag, Chief, Dep. of Interventional Pneumology at the Ruhrlandklinik in Essen, Germany.
In the second presentation, “Impact of atelectasis on survival in emphysema patients treated with bronchoscopic lung volume reduction,“ the authors concluded patients with lobar exclusion and atelectasis had a consistent survival benefit for the first three years after bronchoscopic lung volume reduction. In addition, they reported that survival was increased in this group until the end of the fourth year after treatment. The abstract closes with the following statement, “Lobar exclusion and atelectasis seem to forestall the natural decline of emphysema in patients with severe disease through mechanisms that deserve further investigation.” Commenting on the presentation, coauthor Hugo Goulart de Oliveira, MD, PhD, Professor de Medicina, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre remarked, “This is the third set of results reporting positive data on survival of emphysema patients after EBV therapy. Our findings confirm prior published study results 1, 2 showing that patients who respond to the EBV therapy have improved survival.”
Further information on these and other presentations maybe found at www.erscongress2013.org
About Zephyr®
The Zephyr® EBV received the CE Mark in 2003. Since becoming commercially available in Europe and select countries worldwide, the company estimates that it has been used to treat over 6,300 patients, over 40 percent of whom have been treated in the last 12 months.
About Chartis
The Pulmonx Chartis Pulmonary Assessment System provides pulmonologists with lobe-specific information about a patient’s lung, enabling physicians to plan valve treatments to account for anatomical variations in the lungs of individual patients which impact the effectiveness of the valves. The addition of the Pulmonx Chartis assessment now ensures that a very high percent of treated patients will experience benefit from EBV treatment.
About Pulmonx
Pulmonx, based in Redwood City, California, and Neuchâtel, Switzerland, is focused on developing and marketing minimally invasive medical devices and technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary disorders.
The Zephyr® EBV is an investigational device in the United States. Limited by U.S. law to investigational use.
- Venuta, F., et al. European Respiratory Journal 2012; 39: 1084–9
- Hopkinson, N.S., et al. European Respiratory Journal 2011; 37: 1346–51
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