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Surgery
The recently completed, five-year National Emphysema Therapy Trial (NETT) demonstrated that some individuals may benefit from the surgical removal of emphysematous lung. In these cases, the remaining functional lung can expand into the space left behind and improve ventilation. The study established criteria for determining who would and who would not benefit from this procedure. If you have been shown to have a lot of localized emphysema on a chest X-ray or CT scan, you should ask your doctor to help you arrange for evaluation at a medical center where this type of surgery is done, preferably by surgeons who participated in this study. The surgery is not for everyone with severe COPD and may pose an unacceptable risk for some. That is why the evaluation must be done by experts.
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