TY - JOUR
T1 - Global application of therapeutic hypothermia to treat perinatal asphyxial encephalopathy
AU - Thayyil, Sudhin
AU - Bhutta, Zulfiqar A.
AU - Ramji, Siddarth
AU - Costello, Anthony M.
AU - Robertson, Nicola J.
PY - 2010/6
Y1 - 2010/6
N2 - Therapeutic hypothermia improves neurodevelopmental outcome following perinatal asphyxial encephalopathy and has now become 'standard of care' in industrialised countries. However, none of the cooling trials so far have been conducted in developing countries, where approximately one million asphyxial deaths occur every year. Use of therapeutic hypothermia in such settings raises several clinical, pragmatic and ethical issues. We suggest that rigorous clinical trials of cooling are required to ensure that a safe and effective neuroprotective therapy demonstrated in high resource settings does not become an unsafe and ineffective practice in low resource settings.
AB - Therapeutic hypothermia improves neurodevelopmental outcome following perinatal asphyxial encephalopathy and has now become 'standard of care' in industrialised countries. However, none of the cooling trials so far have been conducted in developing countries, where approximately one million asphyxial deaths occur every year. Use of therapeutic hypothermia in such settings raises several clinical, pragmatic and ethical issues. We suggest that rigorous clinical trials of cooling are required to ensure that a safe and effective neuroprotective therapy demonstrated in high resource settings does not become an unsafe and ineffective practice in low resource settings.
KW - Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy
KW - Intrapartum-related neonatal deaths
KW - Low-income countries
KW - Newborn
KW - Therapeutic hypothermia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953116993&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.inhe.2010.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.inhe.2010.03.003
M3 - Short survey
AN - SCOPUS:77953116993
SN - 1876-3413
VL - 2
SP - 79
EP - 81
JO - International Health
JF - International Health
IS - 2
ER -
