Evaluation of lung elastic recoil by exponential curve analysis.

Static deflation pressure-volume curves for the lungs of 104 subjects were satisfactorily fitted to an exponential function, V = Vmax - Ae-kP (where Vmax is volume V extrapolated to infinite transpulmonary pressure P, and A and k are constants). Subjects included 48 who met rigorous criteria defining normal, 35 were PiM phenotype for alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency and 21 were PiMZ phenotype. The shape constant k was significantly related to age, whereas an index of curve position was not. Values for k corresponded closely to the data of other investigators suggesting that it was independent of size and insensitive to differences in experimental technique. Elevated values of k, indicative of emphysema, were no more prevalent among PiMZ subjects than among subjects with no alpha-1-anti-trypsin deficiency. The natural logarithm (1n) of k, rather than k itself, appears to provide a useful, normally distributed, expression of lung distensibility.