Comparison of two methods of diagnostic lung lavage in ventilated infants with lung disease

Abstract

The methods of nonbronchoscopic lung lavage used for collection of samples of epithelial lining fluid (ELF) in intubated patients are poorly standardized and incompletely validated. In infants with lung disease requiring ventilatory support, we evaluated two techniques of small volume saline lavage for the collection of a specimen suitable for pulmonary surfactant analysis. We aimed to compare apparent origin of the return fluid obtained by each method, equivalence and agreement of the estimates of measured pulmonary surfactant concentration, and the relative strength of association between surfactant indices and lung dysfunction. Fifty-three contemporaneous paired samples of lung lavage flu..