Word: lungsful
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Mary Ellen Avery, Rotch professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, was awarded a National Medal of Science in September for her work with pulmonary surfactant, the chemical substance lining the air spaces in the lungs and preventing their collapse.
Avery and Mead concluded that something which regulates surface tension in the lung must be absent in those babies with hyaline membrane disease. If unregulated, surface tension causes alveoli--the air-carrying sacs of lungs--to collapse, followed by the collapse of the lungs.
At this point, scientists began investigating the differences in the infants' lungs, and specifically what in their composition might be affecting surface tension, says Avery.
Currently, two methods of treatment are in use. In surfactant replacement therapy, surfactant is administered to the infant's lungs and then stimulates the lungs to produce their own.
Part of the success of surfactant therapy has been the efficiency of liquid administration, says Avery. With infusion down the trachea, 20 times the amount of the substance reaches the lungs as compared with aerosol treatment, which was previously the standard method of administration of pulmonary drugs.