Abstract: BACKGROUND ＆ AIM: To study the changes of pulmonary edema and inflammatory reaction in rats at different times after exposed to phosgene. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 180 male rats were randomly divided into 3 experiments, 6 groups with 10 rats in each experiment. The six groups were: negative group exposed to room air and the positive groups exposed to 38.08 mg/L phosgene for 1 minute. Other five groups of rats exposed to phosgene of the same concentration and for the same time, but rats were killed after 1 hour,3 hours,6 hours,12 hours and 24 hours'. Vascular permeability in lung, wet-to-dry lung weight ratio (W∶D ratio ) , cell count in bronchial alveolar lavage fluid (BALF), TNF-α and IL-10 content in lung and in BALF were determined. RESULTS: With increasing time after the rats were poisoned by phosgene, vascular permeability in lung, W∶D ratio and the cell count in BALF significantly increased (P<0.05); the content of TNF-α significantly increased (P<0.05), at the same time, IL-10 content significantly decreased (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The time courses of pulmonary edema and inflammatory reaction developing in rats exposed to phosgene were different.

Key words: phosgene, pulmonary edema, inflammatory