ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISTRESS syndrome (ARDS) was originally termed the adult respiratory distress syndrome because it resembled the clinical picture of infant respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS), and both exhibited hyaline membranes at autopsy. Avery and Mead first reported that lung surfactant quantity and activity were abnormal in infants with IRDS and surfactant replacement has subsequently b...

1975; 39:759 24 Fujiwara T, Childs S, Watabe Y, Macta H, Monta T, et al. Artificial surfactant therapy in hyaline membrane disease. Lancet 1980; 1:55 25 Morley CJ, Miller N, Bangham AD, Davis JA. Dry artificial lung surfactant and its effect on very premature babies. Lancet 1981; 1:64 26 Obladen M, Brendlein F, Krempien B. Surfactant substitution. Eur J Pediatr 1979; 131:219 27 Enhorning C, Gro...

Abstract BACKGROUND: SP-A and SP-D are hydrophilic proteins which regulate the inflammatory response of the lung. Pasteurella multocida is one of the most common bacteria isolated from calves suffering from shipping fever pneumonia, one of the most problems in dairy herds. OBJECTIVE: Evaluation of surfactant content may provide a valuable diagnostic tool for detection of calf pneumonia due to ...

Lung surfactant adsorption to an air-water interface is strongly inhibited by an energy barrier imposed by the competitive adsorption of albumin and other surface-active serum proteins that are present in the lung during acute respiratory distress syndrome. This reduction in surfactant adsorption results in an increased surface tension in the lung and an increase in the work of breathing. The r...

OBJECTIVE Impaired surfactant activity may contribute to primary graft dysfunction after lung transplantation. We assessed the role of surfactant treatment in lung transplant recipients with severe life threatening primary lung graft dysfunction. PATIENTS AND METHODS Five patients after lung transplantation: 4 after single-lung transplantation, for emphysema (n=3) or idiopathic pulmonary fibr...

Mice that are surfactant protein (SP) A deficient [SP-A(-/-)] have no apparent abnormalities in lung function. To understand the contributions of SP-A to surfactant, the biophysical properties and functional characteristics of surfactant from normal [SP-A(+/+)] and SP-A(-/-) mice were evaluated. SP-A-deficient surfactant had a lower buoyant density, a lower percentage of large-aggregate forms, ...

Lung surfactant causes the surface tension, gamma, in the alveoli to drop to nearly zero on exhalation; in the upper airways gamma is approximately 30 mN/m and constant. Hence, a surface tension gradient exists between alveoli and airways that should lead to surfactant flow out of the alveoli and elimination of the surface tension gradient. However, the lung surfactant specific protein SP-C enh...

Molecular mechanisms of surfactant delivery to the air/liquid interface in the lung, which is crucial to lower the surface tension, have been studied for more than two decades. Lung surfactant is synthesized in the alveolar type II cells. Its delivery to the cell surface is preceded by surfactant component synthesis, packaging into specialized organelles termed lamellar bodies, delivery to the ...

Lamellar bodies and alveolar lavage from adult mammalian lung contain unusually high concentrations of phosphatidylglycerol that could serve as a sensitive indicator of surfactant. Phosphatidylglycerol was absent and phosphatidylinositol was correspondingly prominent in surfactant from the preterm rabbit fetus. Phosphatidylglycerol rapidly appeared and phosphatidylinositol decreased following t...