Clinical Trial: Pilot Study of Head Cooling in Preterm Infants With Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy

Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Completed
Study Type: Interventional

Official Title: IRB# 070984 "Pilot Study of Head Cooling in Preterm Infants With Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy"

Brief Summary: The hypothesis is that premature infants' can have enough cooling applied to cool their brain to decrease CNS injury without cooling their body.

Detailed Summary: Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a potentially devastating disease of the newborn central nervous system (CNS) . Portions of the CNS are deprived of oxygen and blood flow for a period of time which may lead to permanent brain injury manifested as cerebral palsy as well as cognitive defects. Until recently no treatment has been shown to be effective for preventing brain damage, even though it has been demonstrated that the damage is progressive and that there is a window of opportunity to arrest some of the evolving brain injury. However, in May of 2007 the FDA approved the first device specifically designed to ameliorate brain damage in term babies with HIE. This head cooling device which was studied here at Vanderbilt under IRB protocol 990129 Brain Cooling for the treatment of perinatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. We thus have eight years of experience of using this device in term infants. The results of the initial trial demonstrated a successful reduction of HIE induced brain injury from 66% in control infants to 55% in treated babies. There were no significant risks to the application of this device in term babies who are kept cool for 72 hours after experiencing an acute HIE event. The initial trials were limited to term babies because of concern that premature infants would be more at risk for hypothermia induced problems such as hypoglycemia,and coagulopathy. The concern about hypothermia in preterm infants remains a limiting consideration for doing whole body cooling in this population. We propose to apply the cooling cap to the heads of preterm infants who have experienced a significant HIE injury but maintain their body temperature in the normal range (36.1-37° C rectally). Infants will be cooled for up to 72 hours and will be tracked till discharge. Although this is a feasibility study, the participants will also be followed-up at 6, 12 and 24 months of age.
Sponsor: Vanderbilt University

Current Primary Outcome:

  • Feasibility Trial- the Olympic Cool Cap Will be Applied, Can the Delivered Cap Temperature be Less Than 12 Degrees Without Changing Rectal Temperature. [ Time Frame: 60 minutes intervals ]
    Measurement of number of participants able to obtain 12 degree cap temperature
  • Cap Cooled to 12 Degrees Without Reducing Rectal Temperature [ Time Frame: 6 hours ]
    Yes/no


Original Primary Outcome: Feasibility trial- the Olympic Cool Cap will be applied, can the delivered cap temperature be less than 20 degrees without changing rectal temperature. [ Time Frame: 15 minutes ]

Current Secondary Outcome:

Original Secondary Outcome:

Information By: Vanderbilt University

Dates:
Date Received: February 7, 2008
Date Started: February 2008
Date Completion:
Last Updated: July 30, 2014
Last Verified: July 2014