Over 40% of children, staying in the intensive care unit for newborns, reveal the signs of respiratory failure. To find new methods of early and non-invasive diagnostics of pulmonary lesion among newborns with respiratory failure, the condition of the antioxidant system by the level of superoxidedismutase in the lung expirates has been studied. The results of the research found considerable increase of superoxidedismutase level and its diagnostic and prognostic value was proved to verify respiratory failure of a parenchymal origin. If the level of superoxidedismutase in the lung expirates is more than 9.321 Un/(min·mg of protein) the probability of parenchymal lesion of a newborn is likely to occur (sensitivity — 79.17%, specificity — 92.59%).
