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Review
. 2024 Sep 18;33(173):240073.
doi: 10.1183/16000617.0073-2024. Print 2024 Jul.

In vivo detection of pulmonary mucociliary clearance: present challenges and future directions

Affiliations
Review

In vivo detection of pulmonary mucociliary clearance: present challenges and future directions

Ada C Sher et al. Eur Respir Rev. .

Abstract

Pulmonary mucociliary clearance (MCC) is an important defence mechanism of the respiratory system and clears pathogens and foreign particles from the airways. Understanding the effect of disease states, drugs, toxins and airway manipulations on MCC could be beneficial in preventing early pulmonary disease and developing new pulmonary therapeutics. This review summarises the current methods and future efforts to detect pulmonary MCC in vivo.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: All authors have nothing to disclose.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Summary of methods to detect pulmonary mucociliary clearance (MCC). 99mTc: technetium-99m; 18F-FDG: fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose; Ta: tantalum; OCT: optical coherence tomography. Figure created using BioRender.com.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Clinical trials measuring mucociliary clearance (MCC) from 2019 to 2023. Data acquired from the Cochrane library of clinical trials.

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