Permissive Hypercapnia and Brain Development in Premature Infants

Completed

Conditions studied: Premature Birth

In brief

In the US, every year approximately 30,000 infants are born very prematurely, with birth weight less than 1000 grams. These infants usually require ventilators to help them breath normally during the first few weeks of life. Although the ventilator is lifesaving, it can also injure the very fragile lungs of these infants. Thus, a ventilation strategy, called permissive hypercapnia (high carbon dioxide), is widely used to prevent lung injury. Importantly, there is new research showing that high carbon dioxide may cause brain injury. In our proposed research, we will use magnetic resonance imaging methods to evaluate the brain in 40 very premature infants at term-equivalent age (Half of them had permissive hypercapnia ventilation, the other half did not) to see if permissive hypercapnia has adverse effect on brain development.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01361360

Run by

Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute

People needed

10

Starts

2011-05-01

Expected to finish

2016-10-01

Last updated by the study team

2017-07-25

Who can join

Age: 0 and older, up to 0. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Premature infants with birth weight 401-1000 g

You may not qualify if…

• Those with complex congenital anomalies, central nervous system malformations, chromosomal abnormalities, or hydrops fetalis

Where it is running

• Arkansas Children's Hospital — Little Rock, Arkansas, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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