Caffeine is good for the preterm brain; might more caffeine be even better? One of the pivotal RCTs in neonatology was the CAP study (Schmidt B, et al. Long-term effects of caffeine therapy for apnea of prematurity. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(19):1893–902). We performed that study because there was no…
Caffeine is good for the preterm brain; might more caffeine be even better?
One of the pivotal RCTs in neonatology was the CAP study (Schmidt B, et al. Long-term effects of caffeine therapy for apnea of prematurity. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(19):1893–902). We performed that study because there was no data on the long term impacts of caffeine, and there was a worry that blocking adenosine receptors in babies having multiple hypoxic episodes might be a bad idea. Adenosine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is produced during hypoxia, and decreases the brain metabolic rate to protect against hypoxic damage. So giving caffeine to babies having a lot of apnoeas could potentially have been a bad idea.
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