Hypobaric hypoxia on pulmonary wash fluid of rats.

The biochemical appearance of the alveolar border pathology, whatever the origin of the impairment may be, has become most important. This is the reason why we have studied the influence of hypobaric hypoxia, at a pressure of 370 mm Hg, on the phospholipids of pulmonary surfactant and alveolar macrophages. During the first hours we observed a decrease in the phosphatidylcholines of the pulmonary surfactant and a concomitant increase in the lysocompounds with simultaneous appearance of a phospholipase activity which seemed to have a macrophage origin.