Effect of theophylline on mucociliary clearance in man.

An aminophylline infusion of 6 mg/kg/body weight improves the mucociliary clearance rate in some normal subjects and infertile male. The theophylline response cannot be predicted from the blood serum level, the smoking habits, or the alcohol consumption of normal males and infertile males. The in vitro sperm-motility needs further investigation. 99mTc-tagged monodisperse erythrocytes inhaled during a slow inspiratory vital capacity with a diameter of 7.5 micrometer and a volume of 200 microliter are most suitable to get reproducable deposition patterns. The reproducability of the clearance measurements in the same subjects with this method is within the 5% range.