Enteral diet and necrotizing enterocolitis in neonates: a scoping review and parent outcome prioritization project

• Author / Creator

  Shulhan, Jocelyn R

• Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a potentially life-threatening inflammatory disease of the gut affecting newborns, especially preterm infants. This complex disease is affected by numerous risk factors including genetics, intestinal microbiota, immune system responses, cardiac or respiratory conditions, and diet. Several studies have investigated the effect of diet on NEC, and many have found that bovine milk-based products are linked to more NEC cases than an exclusive human milk diet. Reasons for this effect are unclear. Further, the effect of other nutrition products like protein-hydrosylated formulas and fortifiers is largely unknown. Obtaining reliable evidence on diet and NEC is difficult, given the rarity of the disease, confounding in observational studies, and the costs of nutrition products and coordinating large studies. In order to advance the field of NEC and nutrition, a comprehensive evaluation of the literature, and development of sufficiently powered, high-quality studies relevant to researchers, clinicians and families are needed. This thesis includes three studies: 1) a narrative review providing background on NEC, preterm nutrition and an overview of the association between diet and NEC in infants; 2) a scoping review mapping clinical research on different enteral diets and NEC, and systematic review of hydrolyzed nutrition products; and 3) a parent cross sectional survey on outcome prioritization that identified outcomes most important to parents, as well as compared parent priorities to commonly reported outcomes in the literature. The scoping review identified 76 studies, mostly observational studies comparing a predominantly or exclusively human milk diet with an exclusive or partial bovine milk-based formula diet. The majority of these studies suggest that human milk may be protective against NEC, but sample size was often inadequate to detect significant differences between feeding groups. Only 1/5 RCTs, 6/21 cohort studies and 11/16 case control studies found that an exclusive or predominantly human milk diet resulted in significantly fewer NEC cases than a diet containing a higher proportion of bovine milk-based products. Two randomized controlled trials comparing protein-hydrosylated fortifiers to intact-protein bovine milk-based fortifiers found no significant difference between the fortifiers and the development of NEC; however, the small sample size and imprecision of the effect estimates identified a low grade of evidence. The parent outcome prioritization study included 15 participants from across Canada and found that infant death and NEC were the most important outcomes to parents. Parents prioritized outcomes involving parents (e.g. quality of life) more than the reflected quantitative literature; whereas, nutrition-related outcomes (e.g. duration of parenteral nutrition) were considered lower parent priorities but were often reported as primary outcomes in the literature. In order to understand the true effect of protein-hydrosylated products compared to human milk and bovine milk-based products on NEC, a large clinical trial is needed. We recommend collaborating with a parent advisory committee during the planning stages of future trials to ensure family-relevant outcomes are included when evaluating NEC and treatment interventions.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Enteral nutrition
  • Necrotizing enterocolitis
  • Neonate

• Graduation date

  Fall 2017

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3G737J19

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.