Effects of inflammatory and other mediators on airway vascular beds

The bronchial arteries extend to all lung structures in man with the exception only of the alveolar wall. In addition to providing nutrition to the lungs, the bronchial vessels can also function as a hemodynamic and gas-exchange system due to anastomoses with the pulmonary arteries; they also play a significant role in controlling the clearance of chemical mediators, regulating the development of airway wall edema, and controlling heat exchange in the tracheobronchial tree. We have measured the effects of inflammatory and other mediators on tracheal mucosal thickness and the changes in tracheal vascular resistance in dogs. Bradykinin, histamine, and methacholine had large "vasodilator" effects, decreasing vascular resistance, and they also clearly increased the thickness of the mucosa. Substance P, VIP, PGF2 alpha, and PGE1 had as large a response on vascular resistance as the drugs mentioned above, but only had small effects in increasing tracheal mucosal thickness. Salbutamol fell between these 2 groups with regard to the pattern of response. Phenylephrine had an opposite action, causing an increase in vascular resistance and a decrease in mucosal thickness. Despite the vasodilatation and the increase in vascular permeability due to vasoactive drugs, the changes in mucosal thickness were rather small and could not be correlated with the decreases in vascular resistance due to the different drugs. Such changes are unlikely to have an appreciable effect on tracheal airway resistance. The change in mucosal thickness may be more significant in those parts of the airways where the ratio of change in mucosal thickness to the radius of adjacent lumen is large, such as the nose and small conducting airways.