ArticleAmerican journal of respiratory and critical care medicine2012
Alveolarization continues during childhood and adolescence: new evidence from helium-3 magnetic resonance.
Article in American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 129 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
129 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 283 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Preterm birth, infant weight gain, and childhood asthma risk: a meta-analysis of 147,000 European children.The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology · 2014Pooled it
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- Stunting is associated with poor outcomes in childhood pneumonia.Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH · 2015Trial
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- Long-Term Growth and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Clinical study of bronchial wall area proportion in children and adolescents based on CT images.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2026Article
- Bronchopulmonary dysplasia and extremely preterm birth: time for a broader perspective on long-term outcomes.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2026Review
- Current Knowledge of Respiratory Function in Early Onset Scoliosis and the Effect of Its Contemporary Surgical Treatment.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Development of the Respiratory System During Adolescence.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Association of preterm birth with severity of molecularly-confirmed acute viral respiratory illness presenting to the emergency department: a multi-year analysis.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- The mechanistic role of adipokine imbalance in airway inflammation, hyperresponsiveness, and remodeling in obesity-related asthma.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Review
- Clinical Interventions and Inflammatory Signaling Shape the Transcriptional and Cellular Architecture of the Early Postnatal Lung.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Persistent lineage plasticity driving lung cancer development and progression.Clinical and translational medicine · 2025Review
- Electrical impedance tomography in neonates: a review.Pediatric research · 2025Review
69 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleThe current hypothesis that human pulmonary alveolarization is complete by 3 years is contradicted by new evidence of alveolarization throughout adolescence in mammals.
objectivesWe reexamined the current hypothesis using helium-3 ((3)He) magnetic resonance (MR) to assess alveolar size noninvasively between 7 and 21 years, during which lung volume nearly quadruples. If new alveolarization does not occur, alveolar size should increase to the same extent.
methodsLung volumes were measured by spirometry and plethysmography in 109 healthy subjects aged 7-21 years. Using (3)HeMR we determined two independent measures of peripheral airspace dimensions: apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of (3)He at FRC (n = 109), and average diffusion distance of helium (X(rms)) by q-space analysis (n = 46). We compared the change in these parameters with lung growth against a model of lung expansion with no new alveolarization. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN
resultsADC increased by 0.19% for every 1% increment in FRC (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.13-0.25), whereas the expected change in the absence of neoalveolarization is 0.41% (95% CI, 0.31-0.52). Similarly, increase of (X(rms)) with FRC was significantly less than the predicted increase in the absence of neoalveolarization. The number of alveoli is estimated to increase 1.94-fold (95% CI, 1.64-2.30) across the age range studied.
conclusionsOur observations are best explained by postulating that the lungs grow partly by neoalveolarization throughout childhood and adolescence. This has important implications: developing lungs have the potential to recover from early life insults and respond to emerging alveolar therapies. Conversely, drugs, diseases, or environmental exposures could adversely affect alveolarization throughout childhood.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.