THURSDAY, April 2, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- For infants with early critical bronchiolitis, endotracheal poractant alfa does not reduce the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation compared with a sham intervention, according to a study published online March 21 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
Malcolm G. Semple, Ph.D., from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a randomized, sham-controlled, parallel-group, phase 2 trial to examine the safety and efficacy of endotracheal poractant alfa for treating critical bronchiolitis. The trial was conducted in 15 pediatric intensive care units; 232 infants were randomly assigned to receive up to three doses of endotracheal poractant alfa or a sham intervention (115 and 117, respectively).
Three infants were withdrawn from the study, and none were lost to follow-up. The researchers found that the median duration of invasive mechanical ventilation was 64.9 and 62.0 hours in the endotracheal poractant alfa group and the sham intervention group, respectively, for a geometric mean ratio of 1.02 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.84 to 1.24). There were no clinically significant safety issues seen in association with endotracheal poractant alfa, and no deaths were reported.
"The treatment was safe, but it didn't make any difference to how long babies stayed on ventilators. We had hoped that surfactant might speed up recovery for these very sick babies, but the evidence doesn't support this," Semple said in a statement.
One author disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.