Outbreak of necrotizing enterocolitis caused by norovirus in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Objectives: To investigate an outbreak of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and to identify the etiology, describe illness risk factors, and develop control measures.

Study Design: A retrospective case-control study was performed including newborns with NEC and newborns without NEC, examining demographic factors and exposures to medications, staff members, and procedures before illness. Stool samples from affected newborns were collected and tested for bacteria, parasites, and viruses.

Perfluorochemical rescue after surfactant treatment: effect of perflubron dose and ventilatory frequency.

To test the hypotheses that perfluorochemical (PFC) liquid rescue after natural surfactant (SF) treatment would improve pulmonary function and histology and that this profile would be influenced by PFC dose or ventilator strategy, anesthetized preterm lambs (n = 31) with respiratory distress were studied using nonpreoxygenated perflubron. All animals received SF at 1 h and were randomized at 2 h as follows and studied to 4 h postnatal age: 1) conventional mechanical gas ventilation (n = 8), 2) 30 ml/kg perflubron with gas ventilation [partial liquid ventilation (PLV)] at 60 breaths/min (n = 8), 3) 10 ml/kg perflubron with PLV at 60 breaths/min (n = 7), and 4) 10 ml/kg perflubron with PLV at 30 breaths/min (n = 8). All animals tolerated instillation without additional cardiopulmonary instability.

Brain-stem auditory evoked responses to hypercarbia in preterm infants.

To determine the effect of acute hypercarbia on brain-stem function in preterm neonates, we compared brain-stem auditory evoked responses (BAERs) during 8% CO2 breathing to those elicited during room air breathing in 12 healthy preterm infants during the first week of life. End-tidal CO2 (ETpCO2), respiratory rate and depth were monitored throughout the protocol. Absolute wave latencies and interpeak intervals of the BAERs were analyzed from duplicate trials.

Prophylactic administration of calf lung surfactant extract is more effective than early treatment of respiratory distress syndrome in neonates of 29 through 32 weeks' gestation.

Objective: Although numerous trials have demonstrated the efficacy of exogenous surfactant for prophylaxis or treatment of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), optimum timing of administration remains controversial. One previous study showed that administration of calf lung surfactant extract immediately following birth, to neonates born before 30 weeks postconceptional age, was preferable to delaying administration until after development of RDS. The current study was designed to test a similar hypothesis for babies born between 29 and 32 weeks gestational age.