Artifactual nitrosation in the lung perfusion apparatus.

Teflon tubing used in the isolated, ventilated and perfused lung apparatus (IVPL) was found to yield artifactually high values for nitrosamine formation after it had been exposed to nitrite. In contrast to an earlier report, we found that submilligram levels of nitrite do not react to form significant quantities of nitrosamine in the IVPL apparatus over a period of 1 h if contamination from the tubing is prevented.