Analysis of human lung morphometric data for stochastic aerosol deposition calculations.

A stochastic lung model is proposed for aerosol deposition calculations. Airway geometry is selected randomly to reflect intrasubject variations in the human airway system. This may also be adjusted to take intersubject variations into account. The statistical analysis of the human airway geometry used is based on morphometric data measured at the Lovelace Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute. Average values and distributions of airway diameters and lengths, distributions of branching angles and criteria for termination of the pathway (when the alveolar region is reached) are presented. Correlations between the cross sections of tubes of succeeding generations and those between diameters and lengths of the same generation are also given.