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Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a patient breathes an oxygen rich liquid from the perfluorocarbon family, rather than breathing air.
History
Research in the area has been progressing since the mid-1960s, when Dr. J. Kylstra from the State University of New York carried out early experiments. This was followed by further experiments by doctors Leland Clark and Golan, reported in the journal Science (June 24, 1966), in which mice had survived for up to 20 hours, though only by inducing hypothermia in the animals.
Since 1990, experiments leading to clinical trials in human cases have been funded by Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp, using perfluorooctyl bromide (or perflubron) under the brand name LiquiVent.
Advantages and Problems
The potential advantages of liquid breathing is elimination of surface tension at the air-fluid interface within the lung's alveoli. This may allow adequate oxygen delivery at lower pressure in patients with conditions associated with excessive surface tension. Infant respiratory distress syndrome is the typical example of such a condition. The perfluorocarbon is designed to dissolve more oxygen in a given volume.
Problems that have had to be overcome are difficulty removing the exhaled carbon dioxide leading to hypercapnea and damage caused by the breathing medium to the surface of the lungs.
Because the perfluorocarbon is more dense and more viscous than air, this increases resistance and thus the work of breathing.
Uses
The immediate use of liquid breathing is likely to be in the treatment of premature babies and adults with severe lung damage, perhaps resulting from fires.
Other potential uses in the long term could be in diving, where breathing liquid would overcome the problems of pressure, especially in avoiding the dangers of decompression sickness ("the bends"), as supposed in the 1989 science-fiction film The Abyss.
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