Pulmonary Delivery of Therapeutic and Diagnostic Gases.

The 21st Congress for the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine included, for the first time, a session on Pulmonary Delivery of Therapeutic and Diagnostic Gases. The rationale for such a session within ISAM is that the pulmonary delivery of gaseous drugs in many cases targets the same therapeutic areas as aerosol drug delivery, and is in many scientific and technical aspects similar to aerosol drug delivery. This article serves as a report on the recent ISAM congress session providing a synopsis of each of the presentations. The topics covered are the conception, testing, and development of the use of nitric oxide to treat pulmonary hypertension; the use of realistic adult nasal replicas to evaluate the performance of pulsed oxygen delivery devices; an overview of several diagnostic gas modalities; and the use of inhaled oxygen as a proton magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent for imaging temporal changes in the distribution of specific ventilation during recovery from bronchoconstriction. Themes common to these diverse applications of inhaled gases in medicine are discussed, along with future perspectives on development of therapeutic and diagnostic gases.