Melatonin treatment for neonatal encephalopathy - PubMed
21 hours ago
- #neonatal encephalopathy
- #melatonin treatment
- #neurodevelopmental outcomes
- Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) affects 1.15 million newborns annually, with high mortality and long-term neurodevelopmental disability (NDD).
- Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is the only proven intervention but is only partially effective and may not be safe in low-income countries.
- Melatonin has shown promise in pre-clinical models for neuroprotection due to anti-inflammatory properties, but its effects in human newborns are unclear.
- The review included four randomized controlled trials with 155 participants, comparing melatonin with/without TH to standard care.
- Evidence on critical outcomes (mortality or NDD at ≥18 months) is very uncertain due to limited data, primarily from one pilot study.
- No conclusions can be drawn about melatonin's effects on NE outcomes; larger trials are urgently needed.