Maximal rowing has an acute effect on the blood-gas barrier in elite athletes (original) (raw)

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects of maximal exercise on the integrity of the alveolar epithelial membrane using the clearance rate of aerosolized 99mTc-labeled diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid as an index for the permeability of the lung blood-gas barrier. Ten elite rowers (24.3 +/- 4.6 yr of age) completed two 20-min pulmonary clearance measurements immediately after and 2 h after 6 min of all-out rowing (initial and late, respectively). All subjects participated in resting control measurements on a separate day. For each 20-min measurement, lung clearance was calculated for 0-7 and 10-20 min. Furthermore, scintigrams were processed from the initial and late measurements of diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid clearance. Compared with control levels, the pulmonary clearance measurement after rowing was increased from 1.2 +/- 0.5 to 2.4 +/- 1.0%/min (SD) at 0-7 min (P < 0.01) and from 0.8 +/- 0.3 to 1.5 +/- 0.4%/min at 10-20 min (P < 0.0005), returning to r...