Bronchial thermoplasty, a type of cutting-edge surgery that “remodels” airways by shrinking smooth muscle in the lungs and prevents them from tightening up and causing an attack, was found to be beneficial for asthmatic patients. The latest study by Dr Geoffrey Chupp, a professor of medicine at Yale University, and colleagues, said that they analysed nearly 300 patients who had the surgery to find that their symptoms had significantly improved five years after the procedure. The study subjects had fewer severe asthma attacks, emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and used less corticosteroid medication, the study authors wrote. It pointed out that while 77.8 percent had severe attacks before the surgery, 42.7 percent had it five years later and that hospitalisations dropped from 16.1 percent of patients to 4.8 percent and emergency department visits reduced from 29.4 percent to 7.9 percent by year five.