Influence of intrinsic particle properties on the assessment of convective gas transport by aerosol bolus technique.

Aerosol bolus measurements are increasingly being used in patients and healthy subjects to assess convective gas transport and mixing in the lungs. To investigate the extent to which intrinsic particle properties confound parameters derived for the assessment of intrapulmonary transport, bolus inhalation experiments were performed in six anesthetized, intubated, and mechanically ventilated beagle dogs using DEHS particles of 0.5, 1, or 2 microns diameter. Therefore, particle displacement by diffusion varied by a factor of two, settling velocity by a factor of 13, and particle inertia as inferred from the stopping distance by a factor of 16. By using a standardized breathing maneuver 6-mL boluses were inhaled into lung depths between 75 and 475 mL. Mode, half-width, and intrapulmonary particle deposition along with mean, standard deviation, and skewness of the particle concentration distributions in the expired air were determined. For all particle sizes studied particle deposition increased with increasing lung depth not exceeding 25% for 0.5-micron particles, but being 80% in deep lung regions for 2-micron particles. Whereas half-width and standard deviation exhibited only small differences between particle sizes (less than 20%), mode and mean of the exhaled bolus were clearly dependent on particle size, in particular for particles inhaled deep into the lung. No significant effects were detectable for the skewness. Hence, convective mixing assessed by half-width or standard deviation is only slightly dependent on particle size, but the estimate of convective bulk transport as inferred from the mean volume from which the bolus is exhaled is highly dependent on particle size. Yet, the intrinsic mobility of unit-density 0.5-micron particles was found to be small enough to consider these particles as ideal tracers for probing convective gas transport in the lungs.