RIC-NEC Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious intestinal disease of preterm and term neonates which remains a major cause of intestinal failure, and an unsolved clinical challenge in pediatrics resulting in mortality rates as high as 50%, reduced quality of life and long-term disabilities such as short bowel syndrome, poor growth, and neurodevelopmental delay. Experimentally, the investigators have discovered that intestinal and brain damage, as well as mortality following NEC, can be avoided by remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) in the early stage of the disease. Remote ischemic conditioning is a therapeutic maneuver involving brief cycles of non-lethal ischemia and reperfusion applied to a limb that protects distant organs (such as the intestine) from sustained ischemic damage. In the clinical setting, the cycles of ischemia and reperfusion can be administered by inflation and deflation of a blood pressure cuff, similar to routine blood pressure measurements. The investigators have also demonstrated that this non-invasive, simple, and easy-to-use maneuver consisting of inflation/deflation of a blood pressure cuff on the upper arm is safe in preterm human neonates with NEC.

Hypothesis and Objectives: The investigators hypothesize that a masked multi-center randomized controlled trial of RIC in neonates with early-stage NEC is feasible.

Study design: This is a Phase II multicenter, masked, randomized controlled feasibility trial consisting of two arms: RIC (intervention) and no RIC (control).

Study population: Preterm neonates with clinical and radiological evidence of early-stage NEC and receiving medical treatment.

Sample size/power of primary endpoint: In the 12 international collaborating centers, the investigators expect to randomize, in 30 months, 78 patients with NEC receiving medical treatment (39 per arm) which represents 40% of approached eligible neonates.