Post-resuscitative management of the asphyxiated term and preterm infant

Treating Hypotension in Preterm Neonates With Vasoactive Medications

Preterm neonates often have hypotension which may be due to various etiologies. While it is controversial to define hypotension in preterm neonates, various vasoactive medications are commonly used to provide the cardiovascular support to improve the blood pressure, cardiac output, or to treat shock. However, the literature on the systemic and regional hemodynamic effects of these antihypotensive medications in neonates is deficient and incomplete, and cautious translation of findings from other clinical populations and animal studies is required. Based on a literature search on published reports, meta-analytic reviews, and selected abstracts, this review discusses the current available information on pharmacologic actions, clinical effects, and side effects of commonly used antihypotensive medications including dopamine, dobutamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, vasopressin, and milrinone in preterm neonates.

Cardiovascular Supportive Therapies for Neonates With Asphyxia - A Literature Review of Pre-clinical and Clinical Studies

Asphyxiated neonates often have hypotension, shock, and poor tissue perfusion. Various "inotropic" medications are used to provide cardiovascular support to improve the blood pressure and to treat shock. However, there is incomplete literature on the examination of hemodynamic effects of these medications in asphyxiated neonates, especially in the realm of clinical studies (mostly in late preterm or term populations). Although the extrapolation of findings from animal studies and other clinical populations such as children and adults require caution, it seems appropriate that findings from carefully conducted pre-clinical studies are important in answering some of the fundamental knowledge gaps. Based on a literature search, this review discusses the current available information, from both clinical studies and animal models of neonatal asphyxia, on common medications used to provide hemodynamic support including dopamine, dobutamine, epinephrine, milrinone, norepinephrine, vasopressin, levosimendan, and hydrocortisone.

Fetal and neonatal inflammatory response and adverse outcome

This article will define the concept of fetal/neonatal inflammatory response, and examine the complex interaction between inflammation and neurotoxicity. There appear to be important interactions between infection/inflammation and hypoxia-ischaemia leading to cytokine release and subsequent brain injury. This article will also define adverse outcome and summarize the complexities inherent to neurodevelopmental assessment. Finally, this article will investigate the currently available evidence suggesting a link between inflammatory response and adverse neurodevelopmental outcome, and focus on those variables that need further study: timing and nature of the infectious/inflammatory process; established and new anti-insult strategies; morbidity in organs other than the brain; genetic influences; and environmental factors.

Neuroimaging in spasticity and movement disorders

Advances in neuroimaging provide unique opportunities to evaluate brain structure, biochemistry, and function. Although a number of imaging techniques have been used in newborns, cranial ultrasonography in premature infants and nuclear magnetic resonance modalities, including magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion-weighted imaging, in high-risk term infants are of foremost benefit. Interpretation is based on knowledge of characteristic imaging findings in specific childhood neurologic disorders and an understanding of differential diagnosis in cerebral palsy syndromes, such as spastic diplegia and various subtypes of extrapyramidal cerebral palsy. This review focuses on imaging studies that can be effectively used in at-risk infants and in children with spasticity and movement disorders to refine diagnosis and guide therapeutic interventions.

The postnatal management of the asphyxiated term infant

Investigations in animal models of hypoxic-ischemic injury have not translated into clinical trials of success because of the complex pathology of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in neonates, the difficulty in defining the onset and duration and severity of the injury, the underlying predisposing disorders of the mothers or the infant, the side effects of many of the investigational drugs precluded clinical use, and many of the investigational agents interfered with only one step of the cascade of events that lead to brain injury. It is possible that a combination of therapeutic agents, including those that affect different levels of the cascade to cell death, will have the greatest neuroprotective effects. Modest hypothermia postpones secondary energy failure and can prolong the window while pharmacotherapeutic agents can be used. It is possible that in the future, sequential administration of agents or strategies that are initiated in the intrapartum period and continued postnatally will be the optimum method for treating infants who are at highest risk for brain injury following acute hypoxic-ischemic asphyxia.