The following Healthcast report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks first aired Dec. 15, 2004, on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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UPMC lung specialists are conducting a study that offers a minimally invasive procedure to help people breathe while suffering from diseases like emphysema.

It's called the vent study, and it's also being conducted in Europe. If all goes well, researchers think it will be an alternative to lung reduction surgery.

Emily Atha, 64-year-old bar owner: "I would walk down to the end of the bar to get a beer for somebody and I'd start sweating. Water would drip down my face."

She didn't realize she had a breathing problem until a friend insisted she see a lung specialist.

Atha: "They took blood, made me walk on the treadmill, and took it again. They said, normally, a person's blood oxygen level would go up. Mine went down."

Scans tell the story of emphysema. She volunteered for the vent study. Researchers are testing a new minimally invasive procedure called endobronchial valve palliation.

A month ago, Atha was walking around with an oxygen tank strapped to her shoulder so she could breathe. That is no longer necessary because of three little valves in her lungs that are the size of a pencil eraser.

Dr. Frank Sciurba, lead investigator: "We're trying to do the equivalent with what cardiology did with stent placements vs. open heart surgery is to try and get a similar effect with a much less up-front invasive procedure."

It's performed through an endoscope and takes a half hour. There are no incisions and it can be reversed.

Sciurba: "The idea is that we'll put these valves in the lung to allow the worse-functioning lung to collapse and the better-functioning lung to expand and do what it's supposes to do -- inflate and deflate with much less work."

The device is a miniature flap valve held in a self-expanding retainer. Once implanted in the patient's airways using standard endobronchial catheter delivery techniques, it becomes a one-way valve that blocks inhaled air from entering diseased parts of the lung, but lets trapped air and secretions vent.

Doctors don't know if it will work for all patients with emphysema or COPD, but they will soon find out.

If you want to participate, call the emphysema research center at (412) 692-4800.