Effect of chronic hypoxia on pulmonary vascular pressures in isolated lungs of newborn pigs.

Our purposes were to determine whether chronic alveolar hypoxia altered pulmonary vascular pressures in lungs of newborn pigs, evaluate the contribution of smooth muscle tone to alterations in pulmonary vascular pressures, and examine whether chronic hypoxia altered pulmonary vascular reactivity to acute hypoxia. We kept 24- to 72-h-old pigs in chambers filled with room air (control) or 11-12% O2 (chronic hypoxia) for either 3-5 (short) or 10-12 (long) days. We used isolated lungs and applied micropuncture and vascular occlusion techniques to measure pressure in 10- to 30-microns-diam venules and inflow occlusion and outflow occlusion pressures before and after the addition of the smooth muscle dilator papaverine or before and after inflation of the lungs with a hypoxic gas mixture. For pigs in both the short and long groups, pulmonary arterial pressure was the only vascular pressure that was greater in chronically hypoxic than in control lungs. Increased smooth muscle tone was the primary source of the change in pulmonary arterial pressure with short hypoxia, whereas morphometric changes contributed to the change in pulmonary arterial pressure with long hypoxia. Exposure of newborn pigs to different lengths of alveolar hypoxia is a useful model to study postnatal pulmonary hypertension in newborns and infants.