Lung Consolidation Depth and Gas Exchange in Different Types of Neonatal Respiratory Failure: The UNION Multicenter Study

Ultrasound can easily detect consolidated lung areas in pneumonia and in more diffuse lung injury such as ARDS in adults.1 Consolidations are also observed in specific neonatal disorders, including respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) caused by primary surfactant deficiency, chronic pulmonary insufficiency of prematurity occurring after RDS resolution (characterized by impaired alveolarization evolving toward bronchopulmonary dysplasia [BPD]), and neonatal acute respiratory distress syndrome (NARDS).2 Another peculiarity is represented by the patients’ weight variation (ie, neonates admitted to neonatal ICUs [NICUs] may weigh approximately 400 g to 4 kg). We aimed to describe the consolidation depth in neonatal respiratory disorders and to investigate its relationship with gas exchange