Hold The Gas? Inhaled Nitric Oxide of No Benefit to Most Premature Babies
Posted Jan 13 2011 9:30pm
A new Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study challenges the widespread practice of treating premature babies with nitric oxide gas to prevent lung problems, neurological damage and death. The research, based on analysis of 22 major studies of the effect of nitric oxide in babies born before 34 weeks of age, found no evidence of benefit in most infants.
Overall, the Hopkins review found that babies who received nitric oxide in the neonatal intensive care unit didn’t fare any better than those who didn’t. The babies who received the treatment were no less likely to die, develop chronic lung disease of prematurity, suffer cerebral palsy or have neurological or cognitive impairments, the researchers found.
The findings, to appear in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, point against the routine use of inhaled nitric oxide in all premature babies and call for careful, case-by-case evaluation of each baby’s degree of brain and lung maturation to determine if nitric oxide would help, hurt or do nothing for a patient, the researchers say.
A new Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study challenges the widespread practice of treating premature babies with nitric oxide gas to prevent lung problems, neurological damage and death. The research, based on analysis of 22 major studies of the effect of nitric oxide in babies born before 34 weeks of age, found no evidence of benefit in most infants.
Overall, the Hopkins review found that babies who received nitric oxide in the neonatal intensive care unit didn’t fare any better than those who didn’t. The babies who received the treatment were no less likely to die, develop chronic lung disease of prematurity, suffer cerebral palsy or have neurological or cognitive impairments, the researchers found.
The findings, to appear in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, point against the routine use of inhaled nitric oxide in all premature babies and call for careful, case-by-case evaluation of each baby’s degree of brain and lung maturation to determine if nitric oxide would help, hurt or do nothing for a patient, the researchers say.