Cigarette Smoking in Man

Abstract

The short-term effect of cigarette smoke upon mucociliary transport has been studied with a test aerosol of 6μ to 7μ monodisperse particles and by external measurement of the particles. The particles were produced from fluorinated ethylene propylene using a spinning disk technique and tagged with technetium 99m. The speed of mucociliary transport in a group of smokers was significantly higher during intensive cigarette smoking than when they were not smoking (half-lives averaged 22.8 and 43.9 minutes, respectively). On the average, tracheobronchial clearance diminished in the same persons when they had abstained from smoking for one week; however, the decrease was not significant.