Pulmonary lavage

For several years the CEA has been carrying on research to develop a pulmonary lavage technique for use on humans. So far the experiments have been conducted on 80 baboons: 13 animals free of Pu were subjected to lavage for histopathological studies of the method itself; 67 apes underwent lavage after inhaling Pu 239 oxide. Both lungs were lavaged with an interval of one hour and respiration was assured each time by the lower lobe of the opposite lung. Lavages were begun at the earliest 24 hours after contamination. The liquid chosen for the lavage was a 9% solution of NaCl. Results have shown that the first lavage gives distinctly better results since it is this operation which eliminate the ascending macrophages. If the proportion of macrophages eliminated during each successive lavage is studied, it can be seen that there is no useful purpose served in conducting more than eight. In practice the number of lavages must be modified according to the effectiveness of lavages already carried out, since individual variations are considerable