Closure of Cavities in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Produced by Immobilization of Both Lungs

¹ The Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University and the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, N. Y. and the House of Rest, Yonkers, N. Y.

The mechanism by which rest of both lungs is obtained without collapse therapy in subjects with pulmonary tuberculosis is described.

The clinical results of seven patients with cavitary pulmonary tuberculosis treated with immobilizing lung chamber therapy are reported.

In 6 of 7 completed cases, disappearance of cavity by x-ray examination and the development of negative sputum took place in a period of 4 to 5 months' treatment.

Immobilization of both lungs provides a therapeutic method of treatment of pulmonary tuberculous cavities that is free from the risk of the harmful side-effects of collapse therapy. The absence of respiratory enlargement of the lungs, which expand the tuberculous cavity in normal respiration, may be in part the mechanism of the gradual deflation of pulmonary cavities in patients treated in the immobilizing lung chamber. This mechanism would be particularly applicable in cavities with a small bronchial passageway in which a check-valve mechanism was previously operative.

This method of treatment requires careful supervision during the first week or ten days of the learning period. Thereafter, the properly trained patient generally maintains continuous arrest of lung movement without conscious effort.