Lung heat transfer

Excerpt

Serikov and colleagues evaluated the effects of the ventilation pattern and pulmonary blood flow on lung heat transfer (Serikov et al. 2004). The authors conclude that the pattern of ventilation substantially affects the values of the overall heat transfer coefficient of the lungs determined at the tracheal level, and thus limits the usefulness of measuring lung heat transfer for determining pulmonary blood flow. A surrogate measure of overall thermal capacitance was determined with the time constant τ of the expiratory temperature decay curve between two steady states (warm humidified inspiratory gas at body temperature followed by dry inspriatory gas at room temperature). …