[Study of uneven pulmonary ventilation by sequential bolus method].
We report a new method of measuring the sequential ventilation associated with the primary mechanism for ventilation inhomogeneity. Four types of sequential curves were examined using simultaneous washouts of multiple tracer boluses inhaled from residual volume (RV) and at volumes above RV. The factors that affected the classification of curves were analyzed by the theory of quantification from the statistical data of blood gases, lung function tests, X-ray and clinical diagnosis. This method was applied to evaluate the ventilation distribution in 100 patients with pulmonary disease. It provided clinical information on certain types of disease which cannot be detected by traditional lung function tests. Sequential bolus method may permit determination of whether the disease has predominantly intra or inter-regional inhomogeneity.
Kobayashi
E
E
Laboratory of Medical Engineering, Osaka Prefectural Habikino Hospital, Japan.
Ohsugi
T
T
Noguchi
H
H
Teramura
M
M
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011659:Pulmonary Gas Exchange; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests / Q000379:methods*