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Möller, W. ; Häußinger, K.* ; Winkler-Heil, R.* ; Stahlhofen, W. ; Meyer, T.* ; Hofmann, W.* ; Heyder, J.

Mucociliary and long-term particle clearance in the airways of healthy nonsmoker subjects.

J. Appl. Physiol. 97, 2200-2206 (2004)
Open Access Green as soon as Postprint is submitted to ZB.
Spherical monodisperse ferromagnetic iron oxide particles of 1.9-microm geometric and 4.2-microm aerodynamic diameter were inhaled by 13 healthy nonsmoking subjects using the shallow bolus technique. The bolus width was 100 ml, and the penetration front depth was 150 +/- 27 ml. The mean flow rate during inhalation and exhalation was 250 ml/s. The Fowler dead space and the phase 1 dead space of the airways were 282 +/- 49 and 164 +/- 34 ml, respectively. Deposition was below 20% without breath holding and 51 +/- 8% after an 8-s breath-holding time. We attempted to confine the bolus deposition to the bronchial airways by limiting the bolus front depth to the phase 1 dead space volume. Particle retention was measured by the magnetopneumographic method over a period of 9 mo. Particle clearance from the airways showed a fast and a slow phase; 49 +/- 9% followed the fast phase with a mean half-time of 3.0 +/- 1.6 h and characterized the mucociliary clearance. The remaining fraction was cleared slowly with a half-time of 109 +/- 78 days. The slow clearance phase was comparable to clearance measurements from the lung periphery of healthy nonsmokers, which allowed macrophage-dependent clearance mechanisms of the slow cleared fraction to be taken into account. Despite the fact that part of the slowly cleared particles may originate from peripheral deposition, the data demonstrate that mucociliary clearance does not remove all particles deposited in the airways and that a significant fraction undergoes long-term retention mechanisms, the origin of which is still under discussion
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Publication type Article: Journal article
Document type Scientific Article
Corresponding Author
Keywords airways; mucociliary clearance; long-term retention; bolus inhalation
ISSN (print) / ISBN 8750-7587
e-ISSN 1522-1601
Journal Journal of Applied Physiology
Quellenangaben Volume: 97, Issue: , Pages: 2200-2206 Article Number: , Supplement: ,
Publisher American Physiological Society
Non-patent literature Publications
Reviewing status Peer reviewed
Institute(s) Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI)