Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease surgery


 * Associate Editors-In-Chief:, Priyamvada Singh, MBBS [mailto:psingh@perfuse.org]

Overview
Patients with emphysema may have big bullae ranging from 1-4 cm and may occupy 1/3rd of lung space. These bullae can cause compromise to vetilation and perfusion. Bullaectomy is the surgical removal of these bullae. It is commonly done in patients with FEV1 < 50% of predicted and who are symptomatic. Bullaectomy helps in re-expansion of the lung tissue.

Bullaectomy

 * The giant bullae (1-4 cm, giant bullae may occupy 1/3rd of lung tissue) seen in patients of emphysema can compress the surrounding lung tissues and cause compromised ventilation and blood flow to unaffected lung.
 * Bullectomy is the process of removing these bullae and can help these patients as it causes expansion of the compressed lung
 * Patients who are symptomatic and have an FEV1 of less than 50% of the predicted value have a better outcome after bullectomy.
 * Postoperative bronchopleural air leak is the major complication.

Resectional surgery

 * The ICSI 2011 COPD guidelines state that lung reduction surgery may be an option for patients with severe symptoms that are not responding to maximal medical therapy.


 * Surgeons generally resect 20-30% of each lung from the upper zones.


 * The surgery can be considered in heterogeneous (upper lobe) disease, low exercise capacity despite optimal medical therapy and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. It should be avoided in (high risk group). Patients with an FEV1 of less than 20% of predicted and either homogenous disease or DLCO (diffusing capacity of lung for carbon monoxide) of less than 20% of predicted)


 * Several studies have demonstrated significant benefit in spirometry, exercise tolerance, dyspnea, health-related quality of life, and mortality in selected group of patients.


 * Complications
 * Mortality ranges somewhere between 0-18%
 * Pneumonia
 * Prolonged air leaks

Lung transplantation

 * Lung transplantation is still not very popular around the world. It is undertaken mostly at tertiary centers.
 * It is primarily done for improvement of symptoms and quality of life. Large scale trials are still needed to show its effect on survival.
 * COPD patients are the largest single category of patients who undergo lung transplantation.
 * Mean survival after lung transplantation is 5 years.
 * The survival at 1 year is 80-90%.
 * Criteria to consider in patient selection-
 * Symptoms
 * Co-morbid conditions
 * BODE index >5, projected survival without transplantation
 * Most centers have an age limit of 65 years.

Progress toward a non-surgical cure
With the discovery of multipotent lung stem cells in 2011, a new treatment option may soon become available. Scientists injected human lung stem cells into mice with damaged lungs. The stem cells formed human bronchioles, alveoli, and pulmonary vessels integrated structurally and functionally with the damaged mouse organ. The May 2011 report in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that human lung stem cells "have the undemonstrated potential to promote tissue restoration in patients with lung disease".