Just for Queen....and no, they are not from a fat chick.


"A new system that keeps lungs breathing outside the body could improve the chances of a successful transplant. The Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System, developed at Toronto General Hospital, can keep a pair of human lungs slowly breathing inside a glass dome attached to a ventilator, pump, and filters. The lungs are maintained at normal body temperature of 37 C and perfused with a bloodless solution that contains nutrients, proteins, and oxygen. The organs can be kept alive in the machine for up to 12 hours while surgeons assess function and repair them. See a video of the system keeping a pair of lungs alive (http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=313)."


I had heard an urban legend of guillotined heads trying to scream or the eyes looking around...I wonder if these lungs are asking for a smoke.

whooooa

thats a pretty cool website, I could spend hours there. But watching those lungs....pretty cool. I had a different idea on how lungs looked.

So I noticed that the left lung had a fracture in it...is this to accommodate the heart cavity?

well, initially you're looking at them from the top down, so the one with the "fracture" in it is actually the right lung.. I'm sure you know the lungs are divided into lobes, so what you're seeing are the fissures between the lobes

the lippy projection of the left lung at the midline is what would be lying over the heart .. and you can kind of tell that the left lung is a bit smaller to accommodate it
and if you look closely you can see a notch at the top of the right lung which is where some of the great vessels would have lain

/random info

well, initially you're looking at them from the top down, so the one with the "fracture" in it is actually the right lung.. I'm sure you know the lungs are divided into lobes, so what you're seeing are the fissures between the lobes

the lippy projection of the left lung at the midline is what would be lying over the heart .. and you can kind of tell that the left lung is a bit smaller to accommodate it
and if you look closely you can see a notch at the top of the right lung which is where some of the great vessels would have lain

/random info


Cool, looks like your learning a lot in med school.

Never really seeing the inside of a person, I couldnt tell if the lungs were rightside up or upside down....did know about the lobes though. whats interesting is the size of them. I'm now curious on how much air (volume) they actually hold....dang, Ive been spending too much time learning about comp sci than biology. LOL, I actually thought about dental school way back when.....oh well :)

I have one month left to go and the Grad degree is finished.....WTF was I thinking.