Antenatal thyrotropin-releasing hormone to prevent lung disease in preterm infants. North American Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone Study Group

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone), published as a randomized controlled trial.

Pulmonary disease is common in preterm infants, despite antenatal glucocorticoid therapy.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 996 women were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, both men and women.

Complete data were available for 981 women and their 1134 live-born infants.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the women nor the staff measuring them knew who was on TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some women received a placebo instead of TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone), giving a reference point.

The 769 infants born at < or = 32 weeks' gestation were defined as the group at risk.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Chronic Disease, Dexamethasone, Glucocorticoids, Infant, Premature, Infant, Premature, Diseases, Lung Diseases and Obstetric Labor, Premature.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) in 996 women.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1998 (The New England journal of medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) compound page, all human trials.