The oxygen consumption of rabbit lung slices after pneumothorax

We produced a pneumothorax on the left side in rabbits and measured the oxygen consumption of lung slices from previously collapsed left and non-collapsed right lung immediately after in vitro re-expansion. After re-expansion, the oxygen consumptions of the previously collapsed and non-collapsed lung were almost identical, 162 +/- 6.7 and 168.6 +/- 9.6 microliter of oxygen consumed per hour per mg of deoxyribonucleic acid (mean +/- SE), respectively. We concluded that 3 days of collapse does not impair the oxidative metabolism of re-expanded lung.