Abstract: There are many lung diseases and conditions for which the preferred form of treatment involves delivering a medicament of the appropriate sort down the Patient's airways into the lungs themselves. The most effective treatments involve the inhalation as an aerosol of some suitable agent in normally inhaled air, and it will often be the case that it is best to deliver the agent as a “spike” or short pulse at some selected point within the Patient's breathing cycle. The present invention proposes treatment apparatus—specifically and in particular small (pocket-sized) hand-held apparatus—that utilises the “spike” principle.

Abstract: The invention is a method and apparatus for treatment in which nitric oxide is supplied from a source to a patient for inhalation incorporating a regulator to control the flow of nitric oxide from the source to the patient, a monitoring apparatus to monitor the patient's respiration, and a controller to cause the regulator to permit the egress of a very short pulse of nitric oxide of a known, predetermined volume at a predetermined time during the patient's inhalation.