TY - JOUR T1 - Focal bronchial dilatations after thermoplasty for severe asthma JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00117-2020 VL - 6 IS - 3 SP - 00117-2020 AU - Charlotte Thibaut de Ménonville AU - Marie-Pierre Debray AU - Loubna Alavoine AU - Marie-Christine Dombret AU - Antoine Khalil AU - Pierre-Yves Brillet AU - Michel Aubier AU - Camille Taillé Y1 - 2020/07/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/6/3/00117-2020.abstract N2 - Bronchial thermoplasty (BT) is a non-pharmacological alternative treatment for severe asthma [1, 2]. BT consists of applying radiofrequency energy to the airways that are distal to the lobar bronchi and >3 mm, to reduce airway smooth muscle mass and bronchial hyperreactivity. However, concerns have been raised about long-term safety, especially risk of bronchial stenosis or bronchiectasis. Indeed, morphological changes in bronchial tubes, such as bronchiectasis or widening of the airways, have been occasionally described during follow-up [3–7]. However, bronchial changes have not been systematically assessed by computed tomography (CT), especially in large prospective cohorts [2, 3, 8, 9].Focal bronchial dilatations develop after bronchial thermoplasty (BT) in 58% of patients with severe asthma. This suggests a need for systematic evaluation by CT scan after BT, with specific focus on bronchial dilatation development. https://bit.ly/2AYuhMjWe thank Clément Fournier (CHRU de Lille, Lille, France), Laurent Guilleminault and Nicolas Guibert (CHU de Toulouse, Toulouse, France) for helpful discussions and sharing experience, and Laura Smales (BioMedEditing, Toronto, Canada) for help with English editing. ER -