Two Cases of Dry Lung Syndrome

ABSTRACT

Preterm infants with oligohydramnios after preterm premature rupture of membranes can present with severe respiratory distress immediately after birth, and the most common cause is pulmonary hypoplasia. Unlike infants with pulmonary hypoplasia, some cases have shown dramatic improvement with aggressive ventilatory support during the initial 1-2 days of distress; those patients have been defined as having dry lung syndrome. It is assumed that oligohydramnios leads to functional pulmonary hypoplasia by compression of the fetal lungs; some of the improvement in dry lung syndrome may thus have resulted from inflation of compressed lung tissue and increase of lung compliance. We report two incidences of dry lung syndrome that were treated successfully with high inflation pressure and inhaled nitric oxide (NO); these are the first dry lung syndrome cases to be reported in Korean infants.