The striking success of antihistaminic agents such as pyribenzamine, benadryl and several others in controling the nasal turgescence and rhinorrhea of seasonal hay fever, and in relieving the symptoms of urticaria, led to exaggerated hopes of similar results in the treatment of asthma. While the effectiveness of antihistaminic agents has lent considerable support to the role of histamine in all...

Endothelin-1 (ET) induces increases in intracellular Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)), Ca(2+) sensitization, and contraction of both bronchiole and pulmonary arteriole smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and may play an important role in the pathophysiology of asthma and pulmonary hypertension. However, because it remains unclear how changes in [Ca(2+)](i) and the Ca(2+) sensitivity regulate SMC contr...

chronic inflammation manifests mainly in the region of the respiratory bronchiole between the terminal bronchiole and the pulmonary parenchyma (1). Its clinical onset usually occurs after the age of 40 or 50, and men are more commonly affected than women. Patients often have a past history of chronic paranasal sinusitis. Insidious and chronic expectoration of purulent sputum is found in the ear...

The topic of airway-parenchymal interdependence (API) is of great importance to those interested in identifying factors that influence airway patency. A carefully designed experiment has raised questions about the classical concept of API. This paper proposes a new mechanism of API. The pulmonary lobe is an aggregated body consisting of many Miller’s lobular polyhedrons and a fractal bronchial ...

As the mechanism of gas transport and exchange in human respiratory ventilation, the complicated processes of mixing and diffusion in airways of human lungs are considered. However the mechanism has not been clarified enough. On the other hand, the analysis of detailed mechanism in the case of artificial ventilation like HFOV (High Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation) is strongly required for the...

Loss of lung units due to pneumonectomy stimulates growth of the remaining lung. It is generally believed that regenerative lung growth involves only alveoli but not airways, a dissociated response termed "dysanaptic growth." We examined the structural response of respiratory bronchioles in immature dogs raised to maturity after right pneumonectomy. In another group of adult dogs, we also exami...

objective(s) to determine the potential toxic effects of manual soldering flux cored solder wire on lung of the rat as an experimental model. materials and methods a total number of 48 adult male rats were divided into experimental (n= 30) and control (n= 18) groups. based on exposure time to solder fume, each group was further subdivided into 2, 4 and 6 week subgroups. rats of experimental gro...

Selenoprotein P (SeP) not only represents the major selenoprotein in plasma, but also provides more than 50% of the total plasma selenium. However, there is no report concerning the direct action of selenium or selenium-containing compounds on the contraction and relaxation of the airway smooth muscle. Therefore, we investigated the effects of SeP and sodium selenite (SS) on the indirectly indu...