A Clinical Trial of High Oxygen Pressure for the Respiratory-Distress Syndrome

Abstract

THE mortality of the respiratory-distress syndrome in the newborn infant (often called hyaline-membrane disease) has remained essentially unchanged. It is estimated that in the United States approximately 30,000 newborn infants die of it each year. At the Boston Lying-in Hospital, where some 6200 babies are delivered each year, hyaline-membrane formation and massive atelectasis were the major findings in 38 per cent of the 84 neonatal deaths per year during the period between 1955–1960.1 Attempts at therapy have taken two general directions, one attempting to reverse or abort the course of the disease (for example, by raising the serum albumin concentration . . .