Effect of Antenatal Steroid on Pulmonary Artery Blood Flow

Neonatal Respiratory Distress Clinical Trial

Official title:

The Effect of Maternal Antenatal Steroid Administration on the Blood Flow Through the Pulmonary Artery in the Term Fetus; a Randomized Control Double Blinded Study

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02978976
• Other study ID #: A22102016
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 4
• First received: October 22, 2016
• Last updated: November 15, 2017
• Start date: January 2017
• Est. completion date: May 2018

Study information

• Verified date: November 2017
• Source: Kasr El Aini Hospital
• Contact: Ahmed M Kamel, M.D.
• Phone: 00201120022332
• Email: dr.ahmed.m.kamel[@]gmail.com
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of administering antenatal steroids in term fetuses on the blood flow in the fetal pulmonary artery, and to correlate these findings with clinical data obtained after birth documenting respiratory disorders.

Description:

After internal review board approval, 126 consecutive patients attending the antenatal care clinic of Kasr Alainy Hospital, part of Cairo university hospitals will be recruited in this study. All patients will sign informed consent.

Patients included in the study will be 20-38 years of age, have an indication for elective caesarean section. Patients will be excluded if they are hypertensive, diabetic or have any disorder that may be aggravated by administration of steroids, women with systemic infection including tuberculosis or sepsis, any fetal congenital anomalies (affecting the fetal heart, lungs, and circulation), history of rupture membranes, or suspected chorioamnionitis, intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), and intrauterine fetal demise (IUFD).

Patients will be randomized on 37 weeks and 6 days gestation by the nurse attending the clinic using a computer generated randomization table, and a closed envelope system will be used. Patients will be equally divided into two groups. Patients in group (A) will receive two doses of 12mg betamethasone ( Dipropfos ® SCHERING-PLOUGH; Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA) intramuscularly (IM) 24 hours apart, while group (B) patients will receive a saline placebo injection in the same regimen.

Ultrasound examination will be done where all patients will lie down in a semi-recumbent position, and the ultrasound will be performed by an expert ultrasonographer, with expert training in fetal echocardiography. The ultrasound specialist will be blinded to which study arm the patients belongs. The abdominal probe of the ultrasound machine (voluson730; kretz,Zipf,Austria) will be placed so that the fetal chest will be in a transverse section, giving us the four chamber view of the fetal heart. The color Doppler will then be switched on, and the fetal pulmonary artery will be identified. The measurements will be taken from the middle segment of the pulmonary artery just after the first bifurcation of the pulmonary branch (just after crossing the aortic arch). We will obtain our measurements from either the right or left pulmonary arteries, whichever is easier according to fetal position, as there is no difference between the values obtained from either according to the work done by Rasanen et al.

The pulsatility index (PI), resistance index (RI), systolic/diastolic ratio (SD), and the acceleration-time/ejection-time ratio (At/Et) will be determined in all cases after recruitment, just before the administration of the drug (betamethasone / placebo), 24 hours after the last dose, and on the day of elective Cs. Caesarean section will be performed 7 days after the last dose of betamethasone, and a senior neonatologist will attend the birth, document Apgar score, and any neonatal respiratory distress.

A sample size was calculated where the difference in the mean pulsatility index (PI) before and after administration of antenatal steroids for the middle segment of the fetal pulmonary artery was 0.42 in a previous study by Bartha et al, and the standard deviation was set as 0.79. The Type I error probability was set at 0.05, and the power at 80%. This gave us 57 patients in each arm, and allowing for dropout rate of 10%, 63 patients will be recruited in each arm of the study, as the ratio between both study and control was 1:1. PS Power and Sample size Calculations software, Versionv2.1.30 for MS Windows, was used to calculate sample size Dupont and Vanderbilt, USA).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 126
• Est. completion date: May 2018
• Est. primary completion date: April 2018
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Female
• Age group: 28 Years to 38 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• indication for elective caesarean section.

• 37weeks +6days

Exclusion Criteria:

• hypertensive

• diabetic

• any disorder that may be aggravated by administration of steroids

• women with systemic infection including tuberculosis or sepsis

• any fetal congenital anomalies (affecting the fetal heart, lungs, and circulation)

• history of rupture membranes, or suspected chorioamnionitis

• intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR)

• intrauterine fetal demise (IUFD).

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Neonatal Respiratory Distress
• Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Newborn

Intervention

Drug:
• Betamethasone
will receive two doses of 12mg betamethasone ( Dipropfos ® SCHERING-PLOUGH; Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA) intramuscularly (IM) 24 hours apart.
• saline
saline placebo injection in the same regimen.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Egypt	11562	Cairo

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Kasr El Aini Hospital

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Egypt, 

References & Publications (1)

Bartha JL, Largo-Heinrich M, Machado MJ, González-Bugatto F, Hervías-Vivancos B. Effects of antenatal betamethasone on human fetal branch pulmonary artery flow velocity waveforms. Fetal Diagn Ther. 2008;23(1):46-53. Epub 2007 Oct 9. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	changes in the mean doppler parameters between the study groups before and after the drug administration ( compare means of doppler reading between both groups using t-test)		1 week
Secondary	Presense of respiratory disorders in neonate (yes/no)		8 days