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A new asthma treatment that essentially burns away muscle that can make airways squeeze shut reduces by half the number of major asthma flare- ups over a year, a Canadian- led study shows.
" I think it's really the launch of a new era for the treatment of asthma," says Dr. John Miller, co- principal investigator of the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.
" This is the first non- drug treatment for asthma that has been shown to be effective," says Miller, division head of thoracic surgery at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and McMaster University.

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While new treatments for asthma are badly needed, this article minimizes the possibility that thermoplasty may be very dangerous. Additional details are needed about the intensity of the irritation, bronchitis, coughing and wheezing which follows treatment "for a week or two". Also, a one year study is a relatively short time period to evaluate such an invasive, repeated treatment for a chronic life-threatening disease. Far more caution is warranted in describing the results of this early stage study.

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