Copyright
©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Anatomical backgrounds on gas exchange parameters in the lung
Kazuhiro Yamaguchi, Takao Tsuji, Shinji Abe, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan
Kazutetsu Aoshiba, Hiroyuki Nakamura, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Tokyo Medical University, Ibaraki Medical Center, Ibaraki 300-0395, Japan
Author contributions: All authors contributed to the conception and design of the study; they contributed acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data; they expressed the final approval of the version of the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare; there were no supportive foundations to the present study.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kazuhiro Yamaguchi, FCCP, MD, PhD, Guest Professor, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Tokyo Medical University, 6-7-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan. yamaguc@sirius.ocn.ne.jp
Telephone: 81-3-34215402 Fax: +81-3-34215402
Received: September 3, 2018
Peer-review started: September 3, 2018
First decision: October 26, 2018
Revised: November 11, 2018
Accepted: December 16, 2018
Article in press: December 17, 2018
Published online: January 27, 2019
Peer-review started: September 3, 2018
First decision: October 26, 2018
Revised: November 11, 2018
Accepted: December 16, 2018
Article in press: December 17, 2018
Published online: January 27, 2019
Core Tip
Core tip: The anatomical gas-exchange unit is organized into the acinus of Loeschcke, while the functional gas-exchange unit is given by the acinus of Aschoff. The ventilation-perfusion distribution in acinar regions is representatively predicted from the inert-gas elimination technique. The effective alveolar-arterial PO2 difference plays a vital role in detecting moderately low ventilation-perfusion regions eliciting hypoxemia but not very low and high ventilation-perfusion regions. Pulmonary diffusing capacity for CO and the value corrected for alveolar volume estimate the impediment of alveolar walls and are more sensitive to detecting the abnormality of pulmonary microcirculation than that of alveolocapillary membrane.