Mucociliary clearance in patients with chronic bronchitis and bronchial carcinoma.

We measured the mucociliary clearance rates and lung function data of 40 normal subjects, of 30 smokers with chronic bronchitis and of 64 patients with bronchial carcinoma. The mucociliary clearance rate of cancer patients was significantly lower than that of normal subjects and of patients with chronic bronchitis who smoked the same amount of cigarettes. The fast clearing phase of the central bronchial tree is more delayed than the peripheral mucociliary clearance rate in smokers with and without carcinoma. With our mucociliary clearance measurement we assessed the self-cleaning filter function of about the first 10 generations of the branching bronchial tree where also most bronchial carcinomas develop. The correlation between lung function data (MMEF) and smoking habits is much better (r = 0.73) than with the measured mucociliary clearance rates (r = 0.3), suggesting that inborn errors of mucociliary transport are nearly as important as external lung damage due to smoking and infection in the development of chronic bronchitis and bronchial carcinoma.