The American review of respiratory disease
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Am. Rev. Respir. Dis. · Jun 1992
A model of airway narrowing in asthma and in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
We have examined the effect of airway wall thickening, loss of lung recoil, and airway smooth muscle shortening on the increase in airway resistance using a model of the human tracheobronchial tree. The values for airway wall thickening were determined morphometrically on the postmortem or surgically resected lungs of normal subjects, patients with moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and patients with severe asthma. Loss of recoil was simulated by deflating airways along their pressure-area curves by 1 to 3 cm H2O. ⋯ The analysis shows that moderate amounts of airway wall thickening, which have little effect on baseline resistance, can profoundly affect the airway narrowing caused by smooth muscle shortening--especially if the wall thickening is localized in peripheral airways. The combination of a loss of recoil and airway wall thickening are more than additive in their effect on simulated airway responsiveness. We conclude that airway wall thickening and a loss of lung recoil can partially explain the airway hyperresponsiveness observed in patients with chronic obstructive lung disease and asthma.
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Am. Rev. Respir. Dis. · Jun 1992
Effect of thyroid hormone on in vivo contractility of the canine diaphragm.
This study was designed to examine the effects of long-term (4 wk) administration of thyroid hormone on the in vivo contractility of the canine diaphragm. We implanted a pair of piezoelectric crystals chronically in the left crural and costal parts of the diaphragm by a midline laparotomy. Contractility was assessed by changes in the shortening of muscle fibers after twitch stimulation of both the crural and the costal parts of the diaphragm and in the transdiaphragmatic pressure (Pdi) after tetanic stimulation (10 to 100 Hz). ⋯ In the quadriceps femoris, although twitch force showed no change, both the maximal rate of contraction and maximal rate of relaxation became faster, and tetanic force decreased. Histologic examination of hyperthyroid dogs showed vacuolization and loss of fiber area of the diaphragm. These observations suggest that thyroid hormone impairs contractility of both the crural and costal parts of the diaphragm similarly, and that the decrease in contractility may be due to a loss of muscle mass and summation impairment of twitch contraction, which differs from that in other skeletal muscles.