IMMUNE-RESPONSE AFTER SURFACTANT TREATMENT OF NEWBORN-INFANTS WITH RESPIRATORY-DISTRESS SYNDROME

We examined the sera of 68 newborn infants with respiratory distress s yndrome; 49 were treated with a natural porcine-derived surfactant pre paration and 19 were controls. Serum of the patients was collected bef ore, 3 weeks and 3 months after surfactant treatment. To detect any an tibody that had been raised, we applied diluted serum of the babies in an indirect immunoperoxidase staining technique on frozen pig lung ti ssue specimens. With light microscopy an immune response could be appr eciated as a brown reddish deposit in the porcine lung tissue specimen s in 4 out of the 49 surfactant-treated and not in the control babies.