Pulmonary function testing of animals chronically exposed to diluted diesel exhaust for 267 days

Thw purpose of this work was to assess the potential effect that chronic inhalation of diesel exhaust may have on lung mechanics and lung volumes. Noninvasive pulmonary function tests have been conducted repeatedly on 25 rats exposed to diesel exhaust at a particulate concentration of 1500 μg/m³, for 20 h/day, days/week for 267 days. The same tests were conducted on 25 clean air control animals. When the data is normalized, there are no apparent functionally significant changes occurring in the lungs that may be attributed to the chronic inhalation of diesel exhaust.