[What are the implications of high pulmonary compliance?]

We studied 19 patients with abnormally high static lung compliances, which had been discovered during a routine pulmonary function test, changes in elastic lung properties and smoking habits after 4 years. We did not observe, as is usually reported in the literature, that cessation of smoking normalizes lung compliance. A falsely normalized lung compliance may be due to lung zones that cease to ventilate. High lung compliances in nonsmoking patients, without clinical and radiological pulmonary abnormalities, are not always pathological but must be supervised.