[Blood gas study in "small airway disease"]

A study of blood gasometry at rest and after exercise was carried out on 98 subjects: 49 healthy, 31 cases with "small airway disease" and 18 cases of clinically nondecompensated obstructive lung disease. The most interesting results arose from the study of PaO2. Its mean value increased after exercise in all groups, but in a manner less obvious as the bronchial obstruction appeared and increased. This increase was almost imperceptible in obstructive patients. The whole of gasometric behaviour ranged the subjects with "small airway disease" in an intermediate position between the normal controls and the obstructive patients. This finding leads the authors to suppose that the "small airway disease" implies the existence of disorders of intrapulmonary gas exchanges which foreshadow the obstructive disease.