Ciliary Beat Frequency in the Airways of Humans : Influences of Lidocaine, Age, Sex and Smoking

ABSTRACT

We measured the ciliary beat frequencies (CBFs) in respiratory ciliated epithelia obtained from the nasal cavity, trachea, and bronchus of 40 subjects during fiberoptic bronchoscopy, using a video-computerized analysis technique. The subjects were classified into various groups based on a range of parameters, including sex, age, history of smoking and whether or not a local anesthetic has been used and mean values of CBFs were analyzed between these groups. The ciliary beat of nasal epithelial cells was significantly faster than that of the trachea or bronchus (p=0.008). There were significant positive correlations between the CBFs at the nasal cavity and trachea (R2=0.467, p<0.001), nasal cavity and bronchus (R2=0.566, p<0.001), and trachea and bronchus (R2=0.541, p<0.001). Subjects older than 60 years of age had significantly slower CBFs at all three sites and than their younger counterparts (p<0.001). Neither sex nor smoking affected the ciliary motility at any site of the respiratory tract. There was no significant difference in the nasal CBFs between the anesthetized and non-anesthetized sides. In conclusion, this study can provide important clinical data on the CBFs of respiratory tracts in humans.