Abstract
Spontaneously breathing preterm infants 48 h old, of 32 weeks gestation or less, were assigned randomly to receive caffeine citrate (loading dose 20 mg/kg, maintenance dose 10 mg/kg/day) or placebo (NaCl 0.9%). To demonstrate a reduction from 50% to 25% in the proportion of infants with > 6 hypoxaemias (decrease in tcPo2 of 20% within 20 sec)/12 h required a sample size of 25 per group (50% power, 5% type I error). tcPo2 was recorded continuously for 50 h and analised by computer. The two groups did not differ significantly in gestational age, birth weight, delivery mode, sex distribution, Apgar scores. Mean serum concentration (SD) of caffeine 2 h after the second maintenance dose was 96.0 (34.5) umol/1 in the caffeine group and 9.3 (12.8) umol/l in the placebo group. The proportion of infants with hypoxaemias in the caffeine group did not drop below the values of the control group.
In conclusion our data do not confirm the efficacy of caffeine in preventing hypoxaemias in premature infants.
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Bucher, H., Due, G. 144 CAFFEINE DOES NOT PREVENT HYPOXAEMIAS IN PREMATURE INFANTS: A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL. Pediatr Res 20, 1058 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198610000-00199
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198610000-00199