Abstract
The muco-ciliary function of the respiratory tract plays one of the most important role in defense mechanism against inhaled microorganisms and other foreign substances.
It was thought that the ciliary system of the maxillary mucosa was functionally distorted in patients with chronic sinusitis since the excretive function of the maxillary sinus with chronic inflammation was usually disturbed. However, little work has been done to study on direct visualization and measurement of the ciliary activity of the chronically inflamed nasal and maxillary mucosa of the human materials.
The authors have undertaken an in vitro investigation on the ciliary activity of the human nasal and paranasal mucosa using the photo-electric method, which was composed of the phase-contrast microscope, photo-electric cells, oscilloscope and Rose chamber. The ciliary activity, therefore, has been shown as the in vitro beat rate of the cilia in this apparatus.
The following results in this study were obtained.
1) In the nasal mucosa, a linear relationship was found to exist between the ciliary beat rate and the temperature of the medium until 40°.
2) The ciliary activity of the nasal mucosa was affected when the pH of the medium was lower than 6 and higher than 9.
3) Various degrees of the ciliary dysfunction were observed in the chronically inflamed mucosa of both the nasal and paranasal mucosa, although the severest dysfunction of the ciliary activity was usually found in the maxillary sinus mucosa.
