Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Aug 4, 2015; 4(3): 179-191
Published online Aug 4, 2015. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v4.i3.179
Inhaled hypertonic saline for cystic fibrosis: Reviewing the potential evidence for modulation of neutrophil signalling and function
Emer P Reeves, Cormac McCarthy, Oliver J McElvaney, Maya Sakthi N Vijayan, Michelle M White, Danielle M Dunlea, Kerstin Pohl, Noreen Lacey, Noel G McElvaney
Emer P Reeves, Cormac McCarthy, Oliver J McElvaney, Maya Sakthi N Vijayan, Michelle M White, Danielle M Dunlea, Kerstin Pohl, Noreen Lacey, Noel G McElvaney, Respiratory Research Division, Department of Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9, Ireland
Author contributions: All the authors equally contributed to this work.
Supported by The United States Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Science Foundation Ireland under the Research Frontiers Programme (11/RFP/BMT/3094).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Emer P Reeves, PhD, MSc, Respiratory Research Division, Department of Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9, Ireland. emerreeves@rcsi.ie
Telephone: +353-1-8093877 Fax: +353-1-8093808
Received: November 26, 2014
Peer-review started: November 26, 2014
First decision: December 12, 2014
Revised: January 10, 2015
Accepted: April 8, 2015
Article in press: April 9 2015
Published online: August 4, 2015
Processing time: 264 Days and 18 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The pathogenesis of lung disease in cystic fibrosis (CF) is characterised by decreased airway surface liquid volume and subsequent failure of normal mucociliary clearance. Therapies acting against airway mucus in CF include aerosolized hypertonic saline (HTS). It has been shown that HTS aids mucociliary clearance by restoring the liquid layer lining the airways. However, recent studies are beginning to broaden our view on the beneficial effects of HTS, which now extend to include anti-inflammatory properties. This review aims to discuss the therapeutic benefits of HTS and to identify the potential benefits of aerosolized HTS for attenuation of neutrophil function.