Composition and surface properties of the bronchial lipids in adult patients with cystic fibrosis

Bronchial secretions from seven patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) were aspirated by fibreoptic bronchoscopy and analysed for lipid composition. The total lipid fraction was also used to measure dynamic surface tension. Pooled samples from 'normal' patients, healthy volunteers, patients with chronic bronchitis, and individual samples from two patients with bronchiectasis were used as controls. Increased bronchial inflammation and infection correlated with a decrease of the phospholipid fraction, and an increase of the cholesterol, diglyceride and triglyceride fractions. When individual phospholipids were analysed, patients with clinically severe CF showed a markedly decreased phosphatidylcholine fraction, whereas the phosphatidylinositol fraction was significantly higher in CF patients than in controls (p less than 0.05). Minimum surface tension was higher in CF patients compared to patients with chronic bronchitis (p less than 0.05). This might be related to earlier reported specific changes in the pattern of fatty acids of the CF bronchial phospholipids.