Alterations in regional epithelial permeability were assessed in 22 retired West Virginia coal miners' lungs by measuring the clearance of inhaled 0.5-..mu..m Tc-99m DTPA aerosol. Activity was measured in both lungs and in regions of interest placed over the lung periphery in the apical, middle, and basal portions of each lung. Clearance rates (T/sub 1/2/) for 5 nonsmokers, 8 ex-smokers, and 9 smokers were significantly faster than for comparable subjects measured elsewhere, who were not coal miners. Regional apex-to-base distributions of DTPA were measured as a function of clearance time and compared with regional ventilation and perfusion. Regional, as well as overall lung clearance curves of 8 smokers and 4 ex-smokers had two components, with overall T/sub 1/2/ of <7 min for the faster one. No correlations were found between T/sub 1/2/ and DLCO or with P(A-a)O/sub 2/. The results of our study suggest that measurement of DTPA clearance is a potentially useful noninvasive technique to assess lung injury in miners exposed to coal dust. 14 refs., 6 figs., 2 tabs.

Damage profiles in crystalline silicon produced by light (B) and heavy (Bi) ions with energies from 10 to 100 keV were studied using the computer program MARLOWE (version 12). The program follows not only the incident ion collision by collision, but also any Si target atom that is set into motion through an energetic collision. Thus, the transport effect of the complete cascade of recoiled target atoms is included in the damage profile. The influence of channeling was studied for Si(100) using beam tilt angles from the surface normal of 0/sup 0/, 3/sup 0/ and 7/sup 0/ about the (001) or (011) axes. The effects of channeling on the damage profile are twofold: first, there is a large reduction of the central damage peak; second, there is a component of the damage profile that extends considerably deeper into the target than that found in conventional studies using a random target assemblage. The influence of amorphous overlayers of SiO/sub 2/ on the damage and implantation profiles in the Si(100) substrate has also been investigated.