Prolonged ventilation of the premature newborn rabbit after treatment with natural or apoprotein-based artificial surfactant

✍ Scribed by B. Robertson; T. Curstedt; G. Grossmann; T. Kobayashi; M. Kokubo; Y. Suzuki

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 703 KB
• Volume: 147
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-6997
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00442216

✦ Synopsis

Premature rabbit neonates (gestational age 27 days) were treated at birth with natural surfactant purified from chloroform extracts of porcine lung lipids either by acetone precipitation (Surfactant CK, n = 10) or liquid gel chromatography (Curosurf, n = 22). Another group of animals received artificial surfactant "reconstituted" from isolated low molecular weight (less than or equal to 15 K) apoproteins and synthetic dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) and dipalmitoylphosphatidylglycerol (DPPG) (Aposurf, n = 10). The phospholipid concentrations of the preparations were adjusted to provide the same individual dose of DPPC for each group of treated animals (3 or 4 mg). In comparison with untreated controls from the same litters, there was a 4-7-fold enhancement of lung-thorax compliance in all groups of surfactant-treated animals during a 3-h period of artificial ventilation. The average initial (20 min) compliance value was lower in the Aposurf-treated group than in animals receiving natural surfactant preparations, but the difference between the groups gradually diminished and was no longer statistically significant during the 2nd and 3rd h of artificial ventilation. Judged from the fall in tidal volume during ventilation with a short expiration phase (0.17 instead of 0.75 s), the apoprotein-based artificial surfactant was also less effective in stabilizing the lungs. A similar conclusion could be drawn from data on alveolar expansion in histological sections, evaluated by automated image analysis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)