Characterization of esophageal body and lower esophageal sphincter motor function in the very premature neonate☆,☆☆,★
Section snippets
Subjects
Studies were performed in 12 (5 male and 7 female) tube-fed preterm infants with a mean PMA of 30 weeks (range, 26-33 weeks). PMA was calculated by adding postnatal age (5-43 days; mean, 18 days) to the gestational age (25-31 weeks; mean, 27 weeks), which was determined from both maternal history of last menstrual period and early ultrasonography at <19 weeks. Mean infant birth weight was 854 g (range, 580-1260 g), and mean weight on the day of study was 960 g (range, 610-1360 g). At the time
RESULTS
The procedure was well tolerated by all infants studied, and no complications were observed. In one study only resting LESP data were analyzed because of the absence of a reliable swallow signal. All other studies were technically satisfactory. The Figure shows a manometric tracing of esophageal motility that was recorded in the most premature infant studied (26 weeks’ PMA; body weight, 610 g) and illustrates the most common esophageal motor events observed in all babies.
DISCUSSION
In infants with an average weight below 1000 g, who are categorized as very low to extremely low birth weight, esophageal and LES motor patterns are almost identical to those recorded previously in much older and healthier premature infants with similar techniques.1, 2, 4 In addition, TLESR was recorded in all infants and was a predominant mechanism of manometrically identified GER episodes.
The esophageal body motor patterns recorded in this study further confirm that although premature infants
Acknowledgements
We thank Mrs Ros Lontis, Mrs Louise Goodchild, and Mr Antonie Snel for making this study possible by recruiting patients and providing specialized nursing care at the bedside; Dr Charles Malbert for the computerized data acquisition and analysis software used; and Mr Malcolm Bakewell for providing invaluable technical support.
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Cited by (0)
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Supported by National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and Women’s and Children’s Hospital Research Foundation. Dr Benninga’s involvement in this project was supported by the Ter Meulen Fund, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and the Netherlands Digestive Diseases Foundation.
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Reprint requests: Taher I. Omari, BSc, PhD, Gastroenterology Unit, Women’s and Children’s Hospital, 72 King William Rd, North Adelaide, Australia 5006.
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0022-3476/99/$8.00 + 0 9/22/100093