[Effectiveness of extracorporeal ultraviolet blood irradiation in patients with chronic obstructive bronchitis].

The use of extracorporeal ultraviolet blood radiation (EUVBR) in the treatment of 67 patients with chronic obstructive bronchitis (COB) showed some specific features of the clinical course of bacterial complications of the basic process. With EUVBR, most patients exhibited normal temperatures, less signs of intoxication and coughing, and rare rale in the lung than in the controls. A most objective criterion for the efficiency of EUVBR was a marked increase in the forced expiratory volume per sec after the first 3 procedures, which improved the patients' condition, diminished exercise-induced dyspnea. The hemogram of the patients undergone EUVBR in combination with antibiotic therapy indicated a substantial drop in erythrocyte sedimentation rates following the first 3 procedures. The growth of pathogenic and opportunistic microbes from the sputum showed a great (10-fold) reduction when EUVBR and antibiotic therapy were concurrently used. The findings suggest that EUVBR has high therapeutical benefits in the treatment of COB.