When you live with lung problems, it often seems like you have very limited options on how to make your life better. While there are no cures, there are new treatment options and research trials being worked on every day, in New York. It takes a lot of time for doctors and scientists to find out exactly why certain things happen in our bodies, and once they make that discovery, it takes time and money to find out how to affect the disease process. Even when they find a molecule that might work, they have to make sure it is safe to put in the human body. If it is safe, and without too many side effects, how will they then get it into the human body? If you put a medication in a pill, the pill goes first in the mouth, then through the digestive track, into the bloodstream, and eventually, the parts that can get absorbed, will make it to the lungs. Will that be effective? Will taking a pill have more effect on the stomach than the lungs? Each of these steps are subject to strict regulations by the FDA and other agencies, and each step takes time and money.
None of this should be discouraging. There are so many dedicated professionals working on these problems- devoting their life to making other people's lives better. At a conference for an upcoming scleroderma-pulmonary hypertension trial yesterday, one of the physicians making a presentation made this statement: We are just beginning to understand the mechanisms behind this disease. We are years away from working on a cure. We are working on this new drug because we think it will relieve people's symptoms and make their lives better.
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