Pressure-volume mechanics of inflating and deflating intact whole organ porcine lungs.

Pressure-volume curves of the lung are classical measurements of lung function and are impacted by changes in lung structure due to disease or shifts in air-delivery volume or cycling rate. Diseased and preterm infant lungs have been found to show heterogeneous behavior which is highly frequency dependent. This breathing rate dependency has motivated the exploration of multi-frequency oscillatory ventilators to deliver volume oscillation with optimal frequencies for various portions of the lung to provide more uniform air distribution. The design of these advanced ventilators requires the examination of lung function and mechanics, and an improved understanding of the pressure-volume response of the lung. Therefore, to comprehensively analyze whole lung organ mechanics, we investigate six combinations of varying applied volumes and frequencies using ex-vivo porcine specimens and our custom-designed electromechanical breathing apparatus. Lung responses were evaluated through measurements of inflation and deflation slopes, static compliance, peak pressure and volume, as well as hysteresis, energy loss, and pressure relaxation. Generally, we observed that the lungs were stiffer when subjected to faster breathing rates and lower inflation volumes. The lungs exhibited greater inflation volume dependencies compared to frequency dependencies. This study's reported response of the lung to variations of inflation volume and breathing rate can help the optimization of conventional mechanical ventilators and inform the design of advanced ventilators. Although frequency dependency is found to be minimal in normal porcine lungs, this preliminary study lays a foundation for comparison with pathological lungs, which are known to demonstrate marked rate dependency.