Subject(s)
Respiratory Tract Infections/etiology , Child , Child, Preschool , Chronic Disease , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , RecurrenceABSTRACT
Experiments in 9 dogs showed that 24 hours after death there was only an insignificant decrease in the activity of surfactant which remained within normal limits. Similar data were obtained in examinations of the lungs of 14 children dying without respiratory pathology. In the main part of the study lungs from 20 children and 1 fetus dying with various respiratory infections were examined. It was found that the greatest effect on the decrease of formation of the surfactant was exerted by crude damage of the epithelium of distal parts of the respiratory ways. No relationship of this phenomenon to the etiology of the process was established, although there was a trend for retention of the normal surfactant activity in mycoplasmal and mycoplasmal-bacterial involvement of the lungs, whereas in viral and viral-bacterial processes the surfactant activity was more frequently decreased. This, however, seemed to be due to differences in the predominant localization of the process.
