The Effect of Vibrations on Surfactant Dynamics in the Neonate Available to Purchase

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is the leading cause of mortality in premature infants, arising primarily from a lack of surfactant in the lung. The dynamic behavior of surface tension in the alveoli is modelled using a numerical model and compared with in-vitro experimentation on a pulsating bubble surfactometer (PBS). The effect of adding superimposed oscillations (from 10–70 Hz) on the breathing frequency is investigated in both the model and experiment. The model and experiment show encouraging comparisons and suggest that the mechanisms of improving surfactant function with oscillatory treatments lie with the increase of diffusion and adsorption of surfactant molecules to the air-liquid interface in the alveoli.