Tustin, California-based Uptake Medical has announced both CE Marking and results of a clinical trial of the company’s InterVapor System for treatment of emphysema. The InterVapor exposes hyperinflated portions of a patient’s lungs to heated water vapor, which reduces the volume of these regions over time.
From a physiologic standpoint, the therapy is a lung volume reduction procedure that aims to balance ventilation-perfusion mismatch by ablating distal airways. Functionally, because the heated vapor is introduced to the targeted areas through a catheter, InterVapor treatment is minimally invasive and leaves no foreign materials in the patient’s lungs.
From the press release:
The VAPOR study was an open label, single-arm trial of InterVapor (Bronchoscopic Thermal Vapor Ablation) in patients with upper lobe predominant emphysema. Primary endpoints measuring lung function improvement (FEV1) and health-related quality of life (St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire or SGRQ) achieved both statistical and clinical significance at six months. Additionally, 83 percent of patients met a combined endpoint for clinical improvement.
Efficacy was consistently demonstrated across all endpoints. Secondary endpoints demonstrated that patients treated with the InterVapor procedure have significant physiologic improvements (including decreased hyperinflation and gas trapping) as well as clinical improvements (reduced breathlessness and improved exercise capacity). All treatments were performed successfully without intra-procedural complications.
Here’s Uptake’s video introducing the system:
Product page: The InterVapor System