• Tai Sun Park, Yoonki Hong, Jae Seung Lee, Sang Young Oh, Sang Min Lee, Namkug Kim, Joon Beom Seo, Yeon-Mok Oh, Sang-Do Lee, and Sei Won Lee.
• Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Clinical Research Center for Chronic Obstructive Airway Diseases, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
• Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2015 Jan 1; 10: 1501-11.

PurposeEndobronchial valve (EBV) therapy is increasingly being seen as a therapeutic option for advanced emphysema, but its clinical utility in Asian populations, who may have different phenotypes to other ethnic populations, has not been assessed.Patients And MethodsThis prospective open-label single-arm clinical trial examined the clinical efficacy and the safety of EBV in 43 consecutive patients (mean age 68.4±7.5, forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1] 24.5%±10.7% predicted, residual volume 208.7%±47.9% predicted) with severe emphysema with complete fissure and no collateral ventilation in a tertiary referral hospital in Korea.ResultsCompared to baseline, the patients exhibited significant improvements 6 months after EBV therapy in terms of FEV1 (from 0.68±0.26 L to 0.92±0.40 L; P<0.001), 6-minute walk distance (from 233.5±114.8 m to 299.6±87.5 m; P=0.012), modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scale (from 3.7±0.6 to 2.4±1.2; P<0.001), and St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (from 65.59±13.07 to 53.76±11.40; P=0.028). Nine patients (20.9%) had a tuberculosis scar, but these scars did not affect target lobe volume reduction or pneumothorax frequency. Thirteen patients had adverse events, ten (23.3%) developed pneumothorax, which included one death due to tension pneumothorax.ConclusionEBV therapy was as effective and safe in Korean patients as it has been shown to be in Western countries. (Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01869205).

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