Tag Archives: steroids

Neonatal Research Shorts : October 2025

Posted on 2 October 2025 by Keith Barrington

Afifi J, et al. Atropine Versus Placebo for Neonatal Nonemergent Intubation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J Pediatr. 2025;286:114719 I had thought this was a settled issue, Neil Finer showed many years ago that atropine alone decreased bradycardias during intubation. But … Continue reading →

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Early hydrocortisone in shock?

Posted on 21 February 2025 by Keith Barrington

A few years ago, we published our experience with the use of hydrocortisone in newborn infants in septic shock (Altit G, et al. Corticosteroid Therapy in Neonatal Septic Shock-Do We Prevent Death? Am J Perinatol. 2018;35(2):146-51), like many such studies … Continue reading →

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Surfactant plus Budesonide? Not a PLUSS for outcomes

Posted on 14 November 2024 by Keith Barrington

Many of us were already aware of the general direction of the results of this trial, a multi-centre RCT of surfactant with or without budesonide (Manley BJ, et al. Intratracheal Budesonide Mixed With Surfactant for Extremely Preterm Infants. JAMA. 2024), … Continue reading →

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“Death or NDI” does it matter… to anybody?

Posted on 30 May 2023 by Keith Barrington

Despite the evidence that “NDI” is of little interest to parents, we continue to focus on it in outcome studies, and even equate it with death. Unfortunately, this new study, using the substantial resources of the NICHD NRN and their … Continue reading →

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Hydrocortisone, with backup dexamethasone, to prevent Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

Posted on 28 March 2022 by Keith Barrington

A trial that has been awaited for a while has just been published (Watterberg KL, et al. Hydrocortisone to Improve Survival without Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia. N Engl J Med. 2022;386(12):1121-31). It was a multi-centre RCT of hydrocortisone in 800 very preterm … Continue reading →

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STOP-BPD follow up study

Posted on 13 January 2022 by Keith Barrington

Does routine hydrocortisone, started at 7 to 14 days of age among infants <30 weeks GA and/or <1250g birth weight who were ventilator dependent and at increased risk for BPD, affect their long term developmental progress? (Halbmeijer NM, et al. … Continue reading →

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Dexamethasone ENT doses

Posted on 31 August 2020 by Keith Barrington

Although we have a great group of ENT surgeons at my hospital, we do have one bone of contention; at least, there is just one bone left since they have agreed that you cannot diagnose reflux by performing a laryngoscopy! … Continue reading →

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Antenatal steroids : good, bad, or both?

Posted on 27 May 2020 by Keith Barrington

Antenatal steroids prior to very preterm birth save lives. Antenatal steroids prior to planned late preterm delivery reduce respiratory distress and increase hypoglycaemia. Might there be other long-term effects on brain structure? There are now some animal models which suggest … Continue reading →

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What to do about early postnatal steroids?

Posted on 3 March 2020 by Keith Barrington

Steroid metabolism in the very immature infant is… immature. Adrenal function is still developing in the fetus between 20 and 26 weeks, and a source of precursors from the placenta is important, but obviously disappears at delivery. Very preterm babies … Continue reading →

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Putting steroids in the lungs? Still unclear if it is safe or effective.

Posted on 7 May 2019 by Keith Barrington

Systematic reviews, and meta-analyses should help us make a clinical decision, by accumulating all the evidence, determining its quality, and synthesizing impacts, we can then decide which therapeutic option to pursue. This latest review answers the following question “should I … Continue reading →

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