Immature airways are highly compliant compared to the adult, suggesting that trachea and bronchi from immature animals may be easily compressed. Although tracheal compression has been extensively studied, the effect of transmural pressure on occlusion of immature bronchi has been neglected. The transmural pressure at which the lumen closed was determined from the transmittance of pressure along...

1 of 3 DESCRIPTION A 70-year-old man with mediastinal lymphadenopathy was referred to our centre for endobronchial ultrasound with transbronchial needle aspiration. During the bronchoscopic examination, two separate anatomical bronchial variances were observed: a supernumerary ‘true’ tracheal bronchus branching off from the distal right lateral wall of the trachea ( fi gure 1A ) and a displaced...

The effect of observer training on sensitivity, specificity and interobserver agreement in the differentiation between normal and pathological bronchi on computed tomography (CT) was studied. The wall thickness of bronchi with normal walls and with pathologically thickened walls were subjectively scored by three independent observers before and after a training period of 2 weeks. Sensitivity, s...

Volatile anaesthetics relax airway smooth muscle in vitro. The amount of relaxation might depend on the type and concentration of volatile anaesthetics, the calibre and precontraction level of the bronchi, and also on the species considered. These effects were investigated on isolated human bronchi. Isometric relaxations produced by halothane, isoflurane and desflurane bubbled on human bronchia...

To better understand how airways produce thick airway mucus, nonvolatile solids were measured in liquid secreted by bronchi from normal pig, cystic fibrosis (CF) human, and non-CF human lungs. Bronchi were exposed to various secretagogues and anion secretion inhibitors to induce a range of liquid volume secretion rates. In all three groups, the relationship of solids concentration (percent nonv...

BACKGROUND Human hemokinin-1 (hHK-1) and endokinins are peptides of the tachykinin family encoded by the TAC4 gene. TAC4 and hHK-1 expression as well as effects of hHK-1 in the lung and airways remain however unknown and were explored in this study. METHODS RT-PCR analysis was performed on human bronchi to assess expression of tachykinin and tachykinin receptors genes. Enzyme immunoassay was ...