Effect of unilateral pulmonary vagotomy on respiratory control in man

We studied the breathing pattern and pulmonary function at rest, and ventilatory responses to progressive hypoxia and hypercapnia in 7 awake patients who had undergone esophageal-carcinoma resection with sectioning of the right pulmonary vagal branch by lymphadenectomy. Twelve control patients, who had received the same surgery without vagotomy, were also studied by the same protocol. Two months after the operation, both patient groups demonstrated substantial depressions in FVC and FEV1.0, and slight augmentations in breathing frequency, minute ventilation, and occlusion pressure at 0.2s (P0.2) at rest. In the vagotomized group, the occlusion pressure responses to hypercapnia (delta P0.2/delta PaCO2) and hypoxia (delta P0.2/delta SaO2) in terms of response curve slope increased from 1.3 +/- 1.2 to 1.9 +/- 1.1 cm H2O/Torr and from 0.29 +/- 0.19 to 0.88 +/- 0.53 cm H2O/% (p less than 0.05), respectively. Contrary to the vagotomized patients, the nonvagotomized control group exhibited no significant changes in ventilatory chemosensitivities. Furthermore, when comparing the control and vagotomized groups, postoperative ventilatory chemosensitivity responses in terms of both hypercapnic and hypoxic occlusion pressure responses were significantly higher in the latter. We suggest that (1) due to the development of the substantial mechanical limitation in pulmonary functions, the Hering-Breuer inflation reflex became activated after surgery, and (2) a diminished Hering-Breuer reflex effect to inhibit the respiratory centers by unilateral vagotomy may have resulted in augmented ventilatory chemosensitivities.