Recently, signif- icantly greater production of interleukin-8, a chemokine in- volved in granulocyte recruitment, was observed when trans- formed human type II alveolar cells (A549) were subjected to 24 to 48 hours of cyclic stretch with a larger versus a smaller strain pattern (27). In a number of other organ systems, such as the heart and vasculature, an association between aberrant cell stretch/loading patterns and cell dysfunction/organ injury has been shown experimentally (28–30).