Author Archives: Keith Barrington

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About Keith Barrington

I am a neonatologist and clinical researcher at Sainte Justine University Health Center in Montréal

Does intravitreal bevacizumab adversely affect long term development? Two simultaneous systematic reviews say yes, or no.

Posted on 14 December 2020 by Keith Barrington

A reliable answer to the above question would require a large multicentre RCT comparing intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) to laser, powered for long term outcomes. Such a trial does not currently exist. As a result, 2 groups have just published systematic … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Three trials with null results, how should we respond?

Posted on 10 December 2020 by Keith Barrington

These 3 articles have just been published, all show no difference in long term outcomes between the randomized groups. What does that mean for the impact on therapeutic decision-making? Natalucci G, et al. Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at Age 5 Years After … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

What role for High Flow Nasal Cannulae?

Posted on 4 December 2020 by Keith Barrington

There are a few new publications which might help us to answer the question posed in the title of this post. When heated, humidified, high flow nasal cannulae were first being spoken about I remembered an old study using standard … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Probiotics and NEC, the latest answer?

Posted on 30 October 2020 by Keith Barrington

The updated Cochrane review of probiotics for prevention of NEC, sepsis and mortality has been published. Meta-analysis showed that probiotics may reduce the risk of NEC: RR 0.54, 95% CI 0.45 to 0.65 (54 trials, 10,604 infants; I2 = 17%); … Continue reading →

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Quality of life cannot be predicted from a brain scan

Posted on 23 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

…either ultrasound or MRI, or by EEG, or neurological examination, or even during follow-up by screening for disabilities. That title is from a recently published editorial (Fayed N, et al. Quality of life cannot be predicted from a brain scan. … Continue reading →

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What happened to the HeROs?

Posted on 22 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

I had to find a way of changing HeRO to Heroes as an excuse for posting a link to this video But also the results of a long term follow up of the HeRO trial have been published. The original … Continue reading →

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CRP can suggest that babies are not infected, when you already know!

Posted on 21 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

I wrote a blog post about 3 years ago about a study examining procalcitonin use in neonatal early-onset sepsis. You can see from my post that the authors didn’t, to my mind, show any utility of procalcitonin (PCT) either alone … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged | 2 Comments

Breast milk fortifiers, a new systematic review

Posted on 21 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

A systematic review has just been published which compares the outcomes of milk fortification with bovine-milk derived fortifier and human-milk derived fortifier. (Grace E, et al. Safety and efficacy of human milk-based fortifier in enterally fed preterm and/or low birthweight … Continue reading →

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Evidence-Based Neonatology: more and more evidence, better and better care

Posted on 20 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

For another project, which I will explain later, I have been trying to find recent large multicentre trials in very preterm babies. I searched PubMed for “Randomized Controlled Trial’, and “Multicentre study”, then filtered by Human and Newborn and Preterm … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged | 7 Comments

My new watch has a pulse oximeter?!

Posted on 18 September 2020 by Keith Barrington

I recently bought a smartwatch, I won’t say which model because what I found is now available on several makes of watch. I discovered when playing around with the Apps that there was one which claimed to measure blood oxygen … Continue reading →

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