Sound transfer function of the congested canine lung.

Alterations of sound transfer function of the lung in pre-congested and congested states were studied in a canine model as an index of the accumulation of lung liquids. Pulmonary congestion was produced by graduated inflations of a balloon in the left atrium. Different degrees of pulmonary congestion were documented by post-mortem wet to dry lung weight ratios. Sound transfer function of the lung was determined utilizing passive sound transmission in the audio freqency range consisting of sinusoidal oscillations swept from 50 Hz to 2 kHz. Sound transfer function in dB was defined as 20 times the logarithm of sound output divided by sound input. These functions were computed for pre-congested and congested states of the lung and the differential values correlated with the post-mortem wet to dry weight ratios of the lung. The magnitude of sound transfer function of the lung correlated well with increasing accumulation of intravascular and extravascular lung liquids and provided a quantitative index of pulmonary congestion.