Negative pressure ventilation enhances acinar perfusion in isolated rat lungs

We compared acinar perfusion in isolated rat lungs ventilated using positive or negative pressures. The lungs were ventilated with air at transpulmomary pressures of 15/5 cm H₂O, at 25 breaths/min, and perfused with a hetastarch solution at P_{pulm art}/P_LA pressures of 10/0 cm H₂O. We evaluated overall perfusability from perfusate flows, and from the venous concentrations of 4-µm diameter fluorescent latex particles infused into the pulmonary circulation during perfusion. We measured perfusion distribution from the trapping patterns of those particles within the lung. We infused approximately 9 million red fluorescent particles into each lung, followed 20 min later by an infusion of an equal number of green particles. In positive pressure lungs, 94.7 ± 2.4% of the infused particles remained trapped within the lungs, compared to 86.8 ± 5.6% in negative pressure lungs ( P ≤ 0.05). Perfusate flows averaged 2.5 ± 0.1 mL/min in lungs ventilated with positive pressures, compared to 5.6 ± 01 mL/min in lungs ventilated with negative pressures ( P ≤ 0.05). Particle infusions had little effect on perfusate flows. In confocal images of dried sections of each lung, red and green particles were co-localized in clusters in positive pressure lungs, suggesting that acinar vessels that lacked particles were collapsed by these pressures thereby preventing perfusion through them. Particles were more broadly and uniformly distributed in negative pressure lungs, suggesting that perfusion in these lungs was also more uniformly distributed. Our results suggest that the acinar circulation is organized as a web, and further suggest that portions of this web are collapsed by positive pressure ventilation.