Ex-vivo effects of intrapulmonary percussive ventilation on sputum rheological properties.

Intrapulmonary percussive ventilation (IPV) has been postulated to enhance mucociliary clearance by improving tracheobronchial sputum rheological properties. The IPV effects on linear (viscoelasticity) and non-linear (flowing) rheological properties of 40 sputum samples collected from 19 patients with muco-obstructive lung diseases were investigated ex-vivo. Each sputum sample was split into 4 aliquots.