Keiichi Akasaka, Takahiro Tanaka, Takashi Maruyama, Nobutaka Kitamura, Atsushi Hashimoto, Yuko Ito, Hiroyoshi Watanabe, Tomoshige Wakayama, Takero Arai, Masachika Hayashi, Hiroshi Moriyama, Kanji Uchida, Shinya Ohkouchi, Ryushi Tazawa, Toshinori Takada, Etsuro Yamaguchi, Toshio Ichiwata, Masaki Hirose, Toru Arai, Yoshikazu Inoue, Hirosuke Kobayashi, Koh Nakata
Whole-lung lavage (WLL) remains the standard therapy for pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP), a process in which accumulated surfactants are washed out of the lung with 0.5-2.0 l of saline aliquots for 10-30 wash cycles. The method has been established empirically. In contrast, the kinetics of protein transfer into the lavage fluid has not been fully evaluated either theoretically or practically. Seventeen lungs from patients with autoimmune PAP underwent WLL. We made accurate timetables for each stage of WLL, namely, instilling, retaining, draining, and preparing...
January 15, 2015: American Journal of Physiology. Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology