Mucociliary clearance in relation to clinical features in patients with bronchiectasis

Patients with bronchiectasis collected from a register covering all hospital stays within the county of Stockholm were asked to participate in a study of lung mucociliary clearance. Twenty-one patients inhaled 6 um Teflon particles labelled with 99mTc and radioactivity was measured externally. The patients were also clinically classified. Clearance varied from normal to extremely slow. The average retention at 2 hours was significantly higher in the patients, 65+27%, (mean +/- SD) than in healthy nonsmokers, 36+22%. Clearance was more impaired the more generalized the airway symptoms were, the more continuous they were, and the earlier in life they had started, all features which indicate a coherence with the immotile cilia syndrome, an obvious "model disease" in this context. Clearance was studied separately in two lungs in 18 patients and was similar in both lungs with one exception. A full presentation of this investigation is submitted to Eur. J. Respir. Dis.