Oxygen toxicity and restructuring of pulmonary arteries--a morphometric study. The response to 4 weeks' exposure to hyperoxia and return to breathing air.

This study describes the pulmonary vascular lesions in rat pulmonary arteries and altered right ventricular weight after 1) prolonged exposure to hyperoxia (87% O2 for 4 weeks) at ambient pressure, 2) weaning from hyperoxia to air over 7 days, and 3) return to breathing air for 2, 4, or 8 weeks. Hyperoxia for 28 days narrows the lumen of intraacinar and preacinar arteries, increasing the percent medial thickness (%MT) by reducing the external diameter and thickening medial muscle. The ratio of patent intraacinar arteries to alveoli is significantly reduced, and pulmonary vascular obstruction and obliteration is evident by electron microscopy. A higher proportion of intraacinar and preacinar arteries have muscle in their wall than in the normal lung: in alveolar wall and duct regions, the proportion of partially muscular and muscular intraacinar arteries increases at the expense of nonmuscular ones (for both regions P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001); and in arteries associated with terminal bronchioli and bronchioli the proportion of muscular arteries increases at the expense of partially muscular ones (for both regions P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001). Both after weaning and after return to breathing air lumen size increases; but, even after 8 weeks, the %MT remains significantly increased, and the ratio of intraacinar arteries to alveoli is less than normal. After weaning, the proportion of muscularized intraacinar and preacinar arteries is similar to that after hyperoxia. Two weeks after return to breathing air, the proportion of muscularized alveolar wall and duct arteries is greater (for both regions P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001). Even 8 weeks after return to breathing air more arteries are muscularized than normal (for both alveolar wall and duct regions P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001), and within the alveolar wall still more are muscularized than after hyperoxia (P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001). Hyperoxia causes right ventricular hypertrophy, reducing the ratio of the weight of the left ventricle and septum to that of the right ventricle (P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001). Weaning further increases the hypertrophy, the ratio being further reduced (P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.001, compared with both hyperoxia and control values). On return to breathing air the degree of hypertrophy is less, but it persists, and even after 8 weeks the ratio is still less than normal (P chi 2 less than or equal to 0.01).