Influence of external loading and assisted ventilation on chest wall mechanical properties

Instantaneous respiratory effective elastance (Eteff) and tissue resistance (Rt) may be measured by studying the relationship between flow at the airway opening and at the chest during forced oscillations; using that method it has been shown that Rt varies little during breathing while Eteff presents much larger phasic variations than can be explained by the curvature of the static pressure-volume curve (Tomalak et a1., 1997). The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that the large variations of Eteff were related to the activity of respiratory muscles. For this, we studied in six healthy subjects the changes in Eteff and Rt induced by inspiratory and expiratory elastic loading (IEL and EEL, respectively), resistive loading (REL) and assisted ventilation (ASV) while keeping lung volume, ventilation and breathing pattern as constant as possible. IEL and EEL predominantly increased Eteff during the inspiratory and expiratory phases, respectively; in contrast, ASV decreased Eteff during inspiration and almost completely abolished its positive volume dependence. The changes of Rt usually paralleled those of Eteff. We conclude that respiratory muscle activity is responsible for most of the variations of Eteff during spontaneous breathing.