Chronic lung disease; prevention and outcome

Large doses of oral vitamin A (5000 IU per day) failed to reduce the incidence of CLD when evaluated in a randomised controlled trial in Liverpool by Wardle et al (page 9). Previously, benefits have been claimed for high dose intramuscular vitamin A, and the Cochrane database reports a reduction in CLD from 62% to 55% after 5000 IU IM three times a week.

In this month's Archives, researchers in Melbourne managed to persuade over 200 14 year olds to complete a complex protocol of lung function tests (Doyle et al. Arch Dis Child2001;84:40–4). Eighty six had weighed less than a kilo at birth in 1977, and many had been diagnosed with CLD in infancy. Asthma was equally common in all the groups (about 20%). There was no difference between the ex-premature …