Evidence Hub

Oral paracetamol vs. oral ibuprofen in the treatment of symptomatic patent ductus arteriosus in premature infants: A randomized controlled trial

Bo Yang, Xiang-Yu Gao, Yi Ren, Yun Wang, Qinglin Zhang

Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine, 2016

87 participants · 71 citations

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze the changes of plasma and urinary prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) levels in preterm infants with symptomatic patent ductus arteriosus (sPDA) treated with oral ibuprofen and acetaminophen. A total of 87 preterm infants with sPDA admitted to the Neonatal Ward of the Affiliated Xuzhou Hospital of Medical College of Southeast University from October, 2012 to June, 2015 were selected and randomly divided into the ibuprofen group (n=43, 10 mg/kg ibuprofen administered orally as initial dose, followed by 5 mg/kg during the first 24 and 48 h later) and acetaminophen group (n=44, 15 mg/kg acetaminophen administered orally once every 6 h for three days). The levels of plasma and urinary PGE2 in the two groups were estimated before and after treatment. The treatment of sPDA infants with ibuprofen (ibuprofen group) or acetaminophen (acetaminophen group) caused a significant decrease in the plasma and urinary PGE2 levels in comparison with plasma and urinary PGE2 levels before treatment (P0.05). The levels of platelet, serum creatinine and alanine transaminase showed no significant changes between the ibuprofen and acetaminophen groups (P>0.05). Following treatment with ibuprofen or acetaminophen, the extent of decrease of plasma and urinary PGE2 was significantly higher among sPDA infants with oliguria (135.0±38.0 ng/l) than that observed in sPDA infants without oliguria (52.5±37.0 ng/l) (P=0.01). The study also found a significant correlation between…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 87 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free