Open AccessNew Advances in Pulmonary Gas Exchange
Author(s) -
John B. West
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
anesthesia and analgesia/anesthesia and analgesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.404
H-Index - 201
eISSN - 1526-7598
pISSN - 0003-2999
DOI - 10.1213/00000539-197507000-00001
Subject(s) - medicine , hypoxemia , ventilation (architecture) , respiratory failure , perfusion , ventilation perfusion mismatch , cardiology , anesthesia , intensive care medicine , lung , respiration , perfusion scanning , thermodynamics , physics , anatomy
Unevenness of ventilation and blood flow within the lung is of great clinical importance because this mechanism is the commonest cause of hypoxemia and respiratory failure. In spite of this, little is known about the distribution of ventilation-perfusion ratios in disease. A new technic for determining these distributions is described and examples are given. An important finding is instability of areas with low ventilation-perfusion ratios during oxygen breathing.