A RAPID METHOD FOR ASSESSING REGIONAL LUNG DEPOSITION KN Chang (1), SH Huang (1), CP Chang (2), CW Chen (2), CC Chen (1) (1) Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, National Taiwan University (2) Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Taiwan Introduction The serial bolus delivery methods were commonly used to measure the regional deposition of inhaled particles in the human respiratory tract. This technique is versatile and can provide important data, such as fraction of lung deposition and morphological dimension of the airways. However, the process is time-consuming because only one aerosol size and one regional deposition rate can be measured each time. Objectives The aim of this study was to develop an experimental system for rapid measurement of regional lung deposition. Materials and methods The main sampling train consisted of a mouthpiece, a flow meter, and a particle counter (Fig 1). The mouthpiece was attached to the pneumotachograph in line with a minimum dead space. In the present study, an aerosol size spectrometer (Welas 2000H) with sampling rate up to 100 Hz was used in this work to cover size ranging from 0.3 to 40 m. A condensation particle counter (TSI 3025A) was used for aerosols smaller than 0.3 m. During respiration, the aerosol was sampled continuously into the counter via the sidearm port attached to the mouthpiece. Nine people volunteered to be test subjects. The breathing patterns generated by the cylinder-piston breathing machine were shown on a monitor in front of subjects for them to follow. It took about an hour for subjects to practice and to tract the breathing curves reasonably well. To calculate the longitudinal distribution of aerosol deposition, the lung volume can be divided into infinitesimally small volume elements, or n elements. Aerosol particles within each volume element of the respiratory tract system are assumed to deposit with an efficiency of x i as they are inhaled and exhaled again with the same deposition efficiency penetrating through the same volume element (i). Aerosol recovery from the i th volume element, RC i, can be obtained by Note that aerosol deposition fraction in i th volume element (DF i ) is the sum of depositions during inspiration and expiration. The local deposition fraction in the i th volume element, LDF i, can then be expressed as Results and discussion Figure 2 shows local deposition values for each 50 ml volumetric regional as a function of penetration volume. Those data were repeated more than five times. The local deposition efficiency was calculated for each 50 ml volumetric region to compare with the data reported by Kim et al. (1996). The trend of our data was similar to that of Kim ’ s (solid line). This difference may be due to the different subjects and breathing flow conditions. The average body height for previous study was above 180 cm and the constant flow rates were used. However, the cyclic flow rates were used in this study. Local deposition fraction was calculated as shown in figure 3. In theory, inertial impaction plays an important role in the first few generations of bifurcation where the velocity is high. For the rest of the regions, the gravitational settling becomes dominant. Therefore, the local deposition efficiency increases with volumetric lung regions.