Intrapulmonary Shunting?- What is it?

[Anonymous]

can anyone explain the concept of intrapulmonary shunt? I'm so confused!

[mathieu]

I am not 100% percent comfortable with this subject, but I will attempt to briefly explain the basic concept. The lung is basically a bunch of air pockets (alveoli) and capillaries. Normally, the blood filled capillaries pass close enough to the alveoli to allow exchange of gases (O2 into capillaries from alveoli and Co2 out of capillaries and into alveoli). I understand intrapulmonary shunting to be a state in which blood passes through the capillaries as they normally do, except they are not able to properly exchange gases with alveoli due to various reasons.

Oh and I just found this snippet from http://www.jlenterprise.com/strategy.html that provides this explanation:

Intrapulmonary shunt is characterized by perfusion to an alveolus that is not ventilated due to atelectasis or other underlying condition such as pulmonary edema or consolidation that prevents ventilation to the alveolus. The blood is shunted by the alveolus without being able to exchange gas.

The page also has animated illustrations of these concepts and further elaborates on it too.

Mathieu

[Anonymous]

thanks, that was very helpful