Surfactant (surf, Survanta®) followed by partial liquid ventilation(PLV) with perflubron (LiquiVent®) improves lung mechanics and oxygenation more than S only, PLV only, or PLV followed by S (Peds Res 1996:39;343A). Histologic and morphometric analysis was performed on slides from the upper anterior and lower posterior lobes of 32 newborn piglets (1.7±0.8 kg) with saline lavage-induced lung injury (PaO2<60 torr, FiO2 1.0) after randomization into 4 groups and treatment for 2 hours with: 1) surf only (S; n=8); 2) PLV only (PLV; n=8); 3) PLV followed by surf (PLV-S; n=8 and 4) surf followed by PLV (S-PLV; n=8). Ventilators were adjusted to maintain tidal volume of 15 cc/kg; FiO2 was 1.0. Histologic variables (alveolar, interstitial inflammation; alveolar, interstitial hemorrhage; edema; atelectasis; necrosis) were scored on a 0-4 point scale (no injury = 0, injury in 25% of field = 1, injury in 50% of field = 2, injury in 75% of field = 3, and injury throughout field = 4). Morphometric analysis on trichrome-stained slides analyzed total cellular to air space, expressed as percent tissue area (% tissue area =[cellular area/total area] × 100). Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxin, and paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction (p<0.05) were used to assess differences. Table

Table 1
Full size table

Conclusions: In this model, surf followed by PLV improved lung pathology more consistently than PLV or surf alone, or PLV followed by surf.(Liquivent® supplied by Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp and Hoechst Marion Roussel; Survanta® supplied by Ross Laboratories, Inc.)