Alveoli
Alveoli pulmonis · Plicní sklípky
Respiratory system
Looks like
Some 300 million thin-walled bubbles at the end of the airways, each wrapped in capillaries.
What it does
Where oxygen crosses into the blood and carbon dioxide leaves it.
Keeping it well
Never smoke; smoke, dust and fumes destroy these walls and they do not grow back.
Its parts
Related conditions
- Acute respiratory distress syndrome
- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Altitude sickness
- Asbestosis and asbestos-related disease
- Aspergillosis
- Asthma
- Breathing pattern disorder
- Bronchiectasis
- Bronchiolitis & RSV
- COPD
- COVID-19
- Cystic fibrosis
- Drowning
- Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)
- Endemic fungal infections (histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis)
- Hantavirus infection
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Hypothermia & frostbite
- Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- Influenza
- Kawasaki disease
- Legionnaires' disease
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Long COVID (post-viral syndrome)
- Lung abscess
- Lung cancer
- Measles
- Mesothelioma
- Metabolic syndrome
- Molar pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease
- Neonatal sepsis
- Neuroendocrine tumours (carcinoid)
- Orthostatic hypotension & POTS
- Peripheral artery disease
- Phaeochromocytoma & hyperaldosteronism
- Pleural effusion
- Pleurisy
- Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP)
- Pneumonia
- Pneumothorax
- Pre-eclampsia
- Pulmonary embolism
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Pulmonary oedema
- Raynaud's phenomenon
- Respiratory distress syndrome of the newborn
- Sarcoidosis
- Sepsis
- Shock (circulatory failure)
- SIADH (inappropriate antidiuretic hormone)
- Silicosis and coal workers' pneumoconiosis
- Sudden infant death syndrome
- Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma)
- Tuberculosis
- Vasculitis (GCA & others)
- Whooping cough