Bronchioles
Bronchioli · Průdušinky
Respiratory system
Looks like
Airways narrower than about 1 mm, with no cartilage — just smooth muscle rings in their walls.
What it does
Carry air deep into the lung and adjust how much reaches each part by tightening or relaxing.
Keeping it well
In asthma their muscle clamps down and the lining swells; a preventer inhaler taken daily reduces attacks. Breathlessness too bad to finish a sentence, or a reliever inhaler that no longer helps, needs emergency care.
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
- Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- Influenza
- Legionnaires' disease
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Long COVID (post-viral syndrome)
- Lung abscess
- Lung cancer
- Measles
- Mesothelioma
- Molar pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease
- Neonatal sepsis
- Neuroendocrine tumours (carcinoid)
- Pleural effusion
- Pleurisy
- Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP)
- Pneumonia
- Pneumothorax
- Pulmonary embolism
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Pulmonary oedema
- Respiratory distress syndrome of the newborn
- Sarcoidosis
- SIADH (inappropriate antidiuretic hormone)
- Silicosis and coal workers' pneumoconiosis
- Sudden infant death syndrome
- Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma)
- Tuberculosis
- Whooping cough