Cooling cap may prevent brain damage in newborns

A cooling cap device may help save brain-damaged newborns, an international research trial suggests.

Researchers in New Zealand designed a cap with cold water running through it to keep the baby's brain temperature near freezing.

Using brain scanning techniques, doctors and scientists discovered the brain damage doesn't set in immediately after delivery, opening a window of a several hours before damage from a lack of oxygen becomes permanent.

The cooling seems to slow the damaging reactions, giving the brain's repair mechanisms a chance.

Dr. Peter Gluckman of Auckland University led the four-year blinded clinical trial of 234 newborns in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. The babies were followed for 18 months.

The infants wore the cap for 72 hours after the potential brain damage was noticed. The rest of a baby's body was kept under a heat lamp with intensive care.

The team concluded the cap reduced the number of deaths from 39 per cent to 25 per cent in lightly brain-damaged babies.

It did not help the 46 most severely affected babies in the trial.

About one to two in 1,000 newborns born at term are at risk of brain damage from oxygen-deprivation during birthing, the researchers said.

The results were presented at this week's annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Research in San Francisco.

The trial was sponsored by Olympic Medical, which is developing the cap for general medical use.