ADSORPTION MONO- AND BILAYERS FROM GASTRIC ASPIRATES OF NEWBORNS

Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS) affects about 10% of newborn infants and is the leading cause of death in babies who were born prematurely. NRDS develops as a result of primary deficiency and/or secondary inactivation of alveolar surfactant (AS). AS is a lipoprotein mixture, which is essential in lowering the alveolar surface tension. Thus, preterm infants who were born with immature lungs and insufficient AS develop NRDS after delivery. Therefore, the early diagnostics of lung maturity is crucial for the prompt clinical therapy. For the time being lung maturity of newborns is determined by biochemical and biophysical analyses of amniotic fluid from mothers or of tracheal aspirates from newborns. The collection of these samples is performed by invasive, traumatic, and painful procedures. However, early diagnosis of respiratory dysfunction in risk newborns requires the establishment of new highly specific, fast and informative methods. The aim of this study was to assess lung surfactant maturity of risk newborns by methods of thin liquid films and Brewster angle microscopy (BAM). For this purpose gastric aspirates (GA) from: (1) prematurely born babies with primary surfactant deficiency as a result of NRDS (aged 26-32 weeks of gestation); (2) a control group of healthy full-term infants; and (3) risk infants born after in vitro fertilization and corticosteroid therapy (CST) of the mothers, were taken. Our preliminary results showed that the probability of black foam film of clinical samples formation, as well as the BAM morphology of GA monolayers, differed between prematurely born children with NRDS, risk neonates after CST, and healthy full-term infants.