Anatom3DTerminal & respiratory bronchioles
Bronchioli terminales et respiratorii · Terminální a respirační průdušinky
Respiratory system
Looks like
The last and finest air tubes, the terminal ones leading into respiratory bronchioles whose walls are already dotted with air sacs.
What it does
Mark the switch from carrying air to exchanging gas.
Keeping it well
This is where smoke damage starts: in COPD they narrow and collapse early, trapping air. Stopping smoking at any age slows the decline; spirometry confirms the diagnosis in someone with years of cough or breathlessness.
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