Medical Progress Series: Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia at 50 Years—An Introduction

In the late 1960s, Dr William Northway, a pediatric radiologist, recognized a pattern of serial changes in chest radiographs that reflected the progression of lung disease in preterm infants, from acute respiratory distress syndrome shortly after birth to chronic radiologic findings of hyperinflation, airway abnormalities, and cyst-like parenchymal infiltrates over time. Understanding the important need to characterize this disease pattern, Dr Northway led a team of colleagues to publish a comprehensive study that clearly articulated the evolution of clinical, radiologic, and pathologic features of this new syndrome, which he named "bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)."1 This seminal paper presciently reported that BPD was caused by the impact of injurious stimuli, including hyperoxia, mechanical ventilation, inflammation, and infection, on the poorly-defended, immature lung.

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