[Loss of alveolar attachments in smoker's lungs and its relation to small airway abnormalities]

The alveolar attachments and small airway abnormalities in the lungs of smokers were measured by computerized imaging to study the relationship between loss of alveolar attachments and small airway abnormalities, the smoker's lungs were divided into three groups: no emphysema (NE), centrilobular emphysema (CLE) and panlobular emphysema (PLE). The distance between normal alveolar attachments (Distance) and percent abnormal alveolar attachments (% Abnormal) in CLE were significantly higher than in NE (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01), and no significant difference in the number of normal alveolar attachments in the 3 groups. The small airway wall area (WA) and deformity index (DI) in CLE differed significantly from MA and DI in NE (P < 0.05 for all). There were no differences between PLE and NE in these indices. Distance and % Abnormal correlated significantly with WA and DI, but the correlations were shown only in CLE. We concluded that alveolar attachment destruction in smoker's lungs was closely associated with small airway abnormalities, which indicated the different patterns of emphysema, CLE and PLE, probably have different pathogenesis respectively.