Pulmonary Surfactant Therapy

Abstract

In 1959, not long after surfactant had been identified as critical to maintaining lung inflation at low transpulmonary pressures,^1,2 Avery and Mead³ reported that saline extracts from the lungs of preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome lacked the low surface tension characteristic of pulmonary surfactant. After several unsuccessful attempts to treat infants with respiratory distress syndrome with aerosolized surfactant,^4,5 intratracheal administration of surfactant recovered from the air spaces of mature animal lungs was found to improve lung expansion and ventilation in preterm animals⁶⁸. The clinical potential of surfactant treatment for respiratory distress syndrome was demonstrated by . . .