Article Text
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Study question
Should preterm infants (less than 34 weeks gestational age) with significant thrombocytopenia but no major bleeding receive prophylactic platelet transfusion at a threshold below 25 x109/L or below 50 x109/L ?1
Design: Randomised clinical trial.
Patients
Inclusion criteria: Preterm infants less than 34 weeks’ gestational age admitted in neonatal intensive care unit with a platelet count of less than 50 000 per mm3 but no major intraventricular haemorrhage within 6 hours of randomisation.
Exclusion criteria: Major life-threatening congenital malformation, major bleeding within previous 72 hours, fetal intracranial haemorrhage, immune thrombocytopenia, infants who did not receive parenteral vitamin K or a low probability of survival beyond several hours. Infants with major bleeding included 72 hours later provided there was no further major bleeding.
Interventions: Infants received 15 mL/kg of body weight of platelet transfusion if the platelet counts were less than 25 x109/L (the low-threshold group) or less than 50 x109/L (the high-threshold group).
Outcomes: The primary outcome was death …
Footnotes
Contributors AR and IR appraised the journal article critically, drafted the manuscript and approved the final version.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Patient consent for publication Not required.