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Lung volumes in infants who had mild to moderate bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Anne Greenough1, Gabriel Dimitriou, Ravindra Y Bhat

  • 1Division of Asthma, Allergy and Lung Biology, Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, King's College London, London, UK. anne.greenough@kcl.ac.uk

European Journal of Pediatrics
|June 7, 2005
PubMed

Insights

Infants with mild-moderate bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have significantly lower lung volumes compared to healthy infants. This finding supports the theory that BPD involves impaired lung development and reduced alveolarization.

Area of Science:

  • Neonatal Medicine
  • Pediatric Pulmonology
  • Respiratory Physiology

Background:

  • Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is increasingly viewed as a lung maldevelopment disorder.
  • This maldevelopment is hypothesized to involve reduced alveolarization, leading to diminished lung volumes in affected infants.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between mild-moderate BPD and lung volumes.
  • To test the hypothesis that infants with BPD exhibit lower lung volumes due to impaired alveolarization.

Main Methods:

  • A comparative study involving 17 infants with mild-moderate BPD and 17 non-BPD infants.
  • All infants were born preterm (<33 weeks gestation) and studied between 33-39 weeks postmenstrual age.
  • Lung volume was quantified using functional residual capacity (FRC) measurements.

Main Results:

  • Infants with BPD demonstrated significantly lower lung volumes (median 19.1 ml/kg) than non-BPD infants (median 26.5 ml/kg).
  • This difference persisted even after accounting for postnatal age, birth weight, and gestational age through regression analysis.
  • Infants with BPD were also characterized by lower gestational age, lighter birth weight, and greater postnatal age.

Conclusions:

  • The reduced lung volumes observed in infants with mild-moderate BPD support the hypothesis of impaired alveolar development.
  • This study provides evidence linking BPD to a sequence of lung maldevelopment characterized by poor alveolarization.

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