Studies on intrapulmonary gas distribution in the normal subject. Influence of anaesthesia and artificial ventilation

Intrapulmonary gas distribution, assessed by a multiple breath, nitrogen washout technique and expressed by the Fowler index NWOD, was studied in subjects with healthy lungs during spontaneous breathing while awake, and during mechanical ventilation under halothane anaesthesia. The distribution index rose from a mean of 32% awake to 56% during anaesthesia. An attempt was also made to differentiate between the contribution of gravitational (airway closure) and non-gravitational (diffuse airway obstruction) inhomogeneity of ventilation. This was accomplished by measurement of the slope of the alveolar plateau during a sinle breath nitrogen washout. The slope was similar awake and anaesthetized, and it increased equally under both conditions, when preinspiratory lung volume was stepped up from RV to CC, CC being the lung volume at which airways begin to close during expiration. NWOD was significantly correlated to the degree of airway closure, expressed as FRC-CC, and, less so, to inspiratory resistance. It is suggested that a less efficient ventilation distribution in anaesthetized normal subjects, as measured by NWOD, is caused rather by airway closure (gravitational inhomogeneity) than by diffuse airway obstruction (non-gravitational inhomogeneity of ventilation).