What is the disease of air bubbles in the lungs?

The lungs are the place where the human body exchanges gases with the outside world. The human lungs can completely absorb the oxygen breathed in by the human body and transport it to various parts of the body through small air bubbles in the lungs. The lungs can also expel the carbon dioxide released by the human body through the respiratory tract. But some people have abnormal air bubbles in their lungs. Let’s take a look at what disease it is that has air bubbles in the lungs?

Some people have congenital bullae, while others may have spontaneous pneumothorax and require surgical treatment.

Effect of alveoli

Acute or chronic hypoxia can cause pulmonary vasoconstriction and increase blood flow resistance. Pulmonary vasoconstriction is caused by low oxygen tension in alveolar air rather than low oxygen tension in intravascular blood. When the oxygen pressure of the gas in a portion of the alveoli is low, the arterioles surrounding those alveoli constrict. When the CO2 partial pressure of alveolar gas increases, the constriction of pulmonary arterioles caused by hypoxia becomes more significant.

It can be seen that the response of pulmonary circulation vessels to local hypoxia is different from that of systemic circulation vessels. The mechanism by which pulmonary blood vessels respond to hypoxia with vasoconstriction is not fully understood. Some people speculate that hypoxia may cause the lung tissue to produce a vasoconstrictor substance, while others believe that the presence of vascular endothelium is necessary for this vasoconstrictor reaction to occur. Alveolar hypochloremia causes local vasoconstriction reaction, which has certain physiological significance. When the oxygen pressure of some alveoli decreases due to insufficient ventilation, the blood vessels around these alveoli contract and blood flow decreases, allowing more blood to flow through the alveoli with sufficient ventilation and high alveolar oxygen pressure.

If there is no such vasoconstriction response, the blood cannot be fully oxygenated when flowing through the underventilated alveoli. This blood with low oxygen content flows back into the left atrium, which will affect the oxygen content of the blood in the systemic circulation. When the partial pressure of oxygen in the inhaled air is too low, such as in high altitude areas, it can cause extensive contraction of the pulmonary circulation arteries and increase blood flow resistance, so the pulmonary artery pressure increases significantly. People who live in high altitude areas for a long time may often suffer from right ventricular hypertrophy due to pulmonary hypertension which increases the load on the right ventricle for a long time.