TY - JOUR T1 - Catch-up alveolar development into adulthood: also in those born prematurely? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 710 LP - 713 DO - 10.1183/13993003.00005-2016 VL - 47 IS - 3 AU - Peter J.F.M. Merkus Y1 - 2016/03/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/47/3/710.abstract N2 - The way the human lung grows post-natally has intrigued many of us and many of our predecessors, and still does. Originally exclusively based on post mortem findings, it was concluded that a large variability in number of alveoli exists between humans and that this wide scatter is present not only at birth but also in childhood [1, 2]. From these cross-sectional anatomical studies, it could not be inferred whether catch-up (increase of alveolar numbers) is possible, whether interindividual differences in longitudinal growth patterns exist and when physiological alveolar multiplication ends. Classically, many authors assumed that new alveoli are formed up to at least 8 years of age [3, 4] but from the largest morphometric study, it was concluded that the number of alveoli in both sexes increased little or not at all after the age of 2 years [2]. The hypothesis was that thereafter, further lung growth consists of dimensional growth of alveoli only. Similar growth patterns were assumed to exist in post-pneumectomy compensatory lung growth, with very little indication that multiplication occurs in adolescence or thereafter [5]. Obviously, to study the alveolar increase during growth, other techniques should be used.The window of possible catch-up alveolarisation seems quite large: good news for the young and the old http://ow.ly/WNPIV ER -