Ahmed Al-Jumaily
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Title: Airway Passages Narrowness and Pressure Oscillation
Biography
Biography: Ahmed Al-Jumaily
Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), asthma and respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) are three lung diseases associated with narrowing of the airway passages which is attributed to either collapse of the upper airways, airway constriction and/or lack of surfactant generation, respectively. These ailments are the major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and have serious negative contributions to the quality of life. Each one of these ailments has different mechanisms and are stimulated by various physiological activities, some are biochemical while others are biophysical. Various pharmaceutical treatments are available, but very seldom without side effects. Pressurizing the lung, such as using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) method to reduce the airway narrowness has been an effective treatment method for some cases. This presentation elaborates on how this treatment method can be enhanced and improved using pressure oscillation (PO). Some successful cases including clinical trials, tissue testing and an animal model will be discussed to show the successful results of using PO in the treatment of OSA, asthma and RDS. While in vitro as well as in vivo experiments have demonstrated that length oscillations can reduce forces in contracted airway smooth muscles (the main driving mechanism for asthma attack), it has been proven that PO improves lung compliance, inflammatory stresses on patients and preserves surfactant function. This presentation highlights how engineering innovation can convert PO to a lung therapy and how this could be expanded further to the cell level to achieve asthma therapy. Is this an alternative and/or supplement to inhalers? Can oscillation help to reduce the use of current relaxants
