A baboon model for in vivo assessment of mucociliary lung clearance.

A suitable baboon model (Papio ursinus) for assessing inhibitory effects on mucociliary lung clearance was required. Clearance of various dimensions of nebulized particles (99mTc-labelled) was monitored with the animals (n = 6) under either ketamine or pentobarbitone anaesthesia. The best prospect of substantial and reproducible clearance in spite of the inhibition by the anaesthesia were obtained with pentobarbitone, and using nebulized radiolabelled particles of diameter range between 10 and 45 microns, thus avoiding trapping in the non-ciliary alveoli.