Hyaline membrane disease or respiratory distress syndrome in newborns.

Abstract

Abstract

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is a common reason for admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). RDS was originally described as idiopathic respiratory distress syndrome (iRDS) or "hyaline membrane disease" (HMD) due to the histologic presence of alveolar fibrin layers and necrotic cells originally described in the Lancet respiratory medicine in 1953. Later, its name was changed from iRDS to RDS once it was shown that the main cause was surfactant deficiency (1).

Surfactant is in the lung of mammals and its main function is to reduce the surface tension of the alveoli thus preventing pulmonary atelectasis. In 1959, at Johns Hopkins Hospital Drs. Mary Ellen Avery and Jere Mead declared based on Clements' studies, diffuse alveolar collapse found in hyaline membrane disease, in which it is produced by the absence of surface-active activity (2). Then, excellent results were obtained in animal studies directed by Fujiwara in 1980, where a bovine-derived surfactant was used in the treatment of RDS intratracheally with excellent results. Morley and Bangham (1988) used an artificial surfactant (ALEC) for the first time in patients with RDS (3).