Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

Excerpt

The term ‘bronchopulmonary dysplasia’ (BPD) was first used by Northway et al. in 1967 to describe a chronic form of injury to the lungs caused by barotrauma and oxygen injury in preterm infants requiring mechanical ventilation. Despite significant advances in preterm infant care in the past few decades, including the development of surfactant as well as newer and gentler modes of ventilation, the prevalence of BPD continues to remain high. These new strategies have allowed the survival of very low birth weight infants and resulted in a change in the characteristics of BPD. Jobe coined the term “new BPD” in 1999 to describe the chronic lung disease in preterm infants at that time. This “new BPD” demonstrated much less airway damage and alveolar septal fibrosis when compared to “old BPD” which was characterized by dysmorphic microvasculature and alveolar simplification.