Synthetic Lung Surfactant Treatment for COVID-19 Pneumonia

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has led to morbidity in millions of patients, ranging from mild flu-like symptoms to severe respiratory failure, necessitating oxygen supplementation and mechanical ventilation, and ultimately death. The SARS-CoV-2 virus reacts with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) molecules that are especially found in alveolar epithelial type 2 cells in the lungs and thereby causes a loss in lung surfactant, a protein-lipid mixture that is crucial for both native immunity and reduction of surface ten-sion in the lung alveoli. Lung surfactant insufficiency results in atelectasis and loss of functional lung tissue amid an inflammatory storm and may be countered by treating COVID-19 pneumonia patients with exogenous lung surfactant, preferably by aerosol delivery of a novel dry powder synthetic lung sur-factant. More research on timing, dosing, and delivery of synthetic lung surfactant in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia is of crucial importance to implement this approach in clinical practice.Copyright © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.