A tiny, resilient metal wire designed to gather and compress diseased lung tissue may offer relief to patients with severe heterogeneous emphysema, a subtype of the disease that involves specific, usually isolated areas of the lungs, according to the results of a multicenter international trial conducted in the Netherlands, Germany and France.

The wire, called a lung volume reduction coil (LVRC), can be easily implanted and is designed to take the place of more invasive procedures used to improve the lung function of emphysema patients...