Antioxidants, nutrition, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

The immaturity of the lung of the very prematurely delivered newborn appears to make it hypersusceptible to injury by those very therapeutic measures that the infant requires shortly after birth--mechanical ventilation and hyperoxia. There is good experimental evidence to relate the immature lung's susceptibility to early hyperoxia-induced lung damage to deficient antioxidant defensive systems. Less than fully adequate nutritional support of these tiny newborns can have extremely detrimental effects on their lungs' ability to resist and repair on-going injury and to continue developing normally. Promising experimental means of possible protection from hyperoxic lung damage and progression to chronic lung disease (bronchopulmonary dysplasia) are reviewed.