Abstract
Chest physiotherapy is widely used to clear bronchial secretions. There is, however, a lack of objective evidence of its effectiveness. The present study utilizes a gamma camera to determine precise changes in regional lung clearance of radioactive aerosol following chest physiotherapy in six patients with chronic irreversible airways obstruction (FEV,/FVC 44 ± 12%). Regional lung clearance was followed for 2-5 h with a gamma camera (Nuclear Enterprises mark III) linked to a computer (PDP-1105) after the inhalation of uniform 5 μτη polystyrene particles labelled with T c (Thomson & Short, 1969, Journal of Applied Physiology, 26, 535). Chest physiotherapy (percussion, shaking and postural drainage) was administered for 20 min, 1 h after the inhalation of the particles, and the subsequent immediate change in regional lung clearance was compared with the equivalent period during a control run. Both lung fields were divided into three regions: 1, central, 2, intermediate and 3, peripheral. The results from each side were combined and Table 1 shows the mean fall in particle deposition for the two runs (control and with physiotherapy) expressed as percentage of initial particle deposition and corrected for radioactive decay. The mean fall in particle deposition for the
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