TracheobronchiaI Clearance in Twins

Abstract
Tracheobronchial clearance was studied with a lest aerosol of 6μ-7μ monodisperse fluorinated ethylene propylene (Teflon 120) particles tagged with technetium 99m (half-life, 6.0 hours) and external measurements of the radioactivity in the lungs. Nine pairs of monozygotic and nine pairs of dizygotic twins were studied. The clearance patterns in the monozygotic pairs were highly similar. In the dizygotic pairs there was a tendency to similarity. Among the pairs there was a remarkable difference in the clearance patterns, Consequently the result indicates that tracheobronchial clearance to a great extent is constitutionally determined. The medical implications of this are discussed.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: