Overview
Topic Areas
Current Sites
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Overview
The NRN was established in 1986 to improve the care and outcome of neonates, especially very low birth weight infants (<1,500 grams at birth). The mission of the NRN is to investigate the safety and efficacy of treatment and management strategies for newborn infants. The NRN facilitates the advancement of neonatal care by supporting a network of academic centers that can study patients and provide answers to critical research questions more rapidly than could individual centers acting alone.
The Network, funded through the NICHD Pregnancy and Perinatology (PP) Branch, includes 18 clinical sites, four collaborating sites (sites that conducted trials within the Network and are continuing follow-up research of study subjects), and a data coordinating center. These sites include research centers at universities and medical centers across the nation.
The NRN is funded by an NIH Cooperative Clinical Research award mechanism (U10). In fiscal year 2011, NICHD funded 18 NRN sites as well as a Data Coordinating Center. Institutes partnering with the NICHD in the NRN include the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Eye Institute (NEI).
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Topic Areas
NRN studies include multicenter clinical trials and observational studies in neonatal medicine and single-center studies, including observational studies and randomized controlled trials of promising therapies. Selected research topics include (but are not limited to):
- Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Studying the efficacy and safety of hydrocortisone as a treatment to assist in extubating premature infants who remain on a respirator at 14 to 28 days postnatal age;
- Hypoxemic respiratory failure (HRF). Testing the safety and efficacy of inhaled Prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) as a treatment for HRF;
- Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Testing novel approaches, such as induced hypothermia (PDF – 120 KB), to reduce death and disability in infants with HIE;
- Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). Examining the use of vitamin E (PDF – 114 KB) given shortly after birth to prevent IVH in preterm infants;
- Necrotizing enterocolitis. Comparing the effectiveness of surgical interventions, such as laparotomy or drainage (PDF – 115 KB), and non-surgical interventions on necrotizing enterocolitis, spontaneous intestinal perforation, and other health conditions sometimes seen in preterm infants;
- Outcomes and neurodevelopmental impairment. Surveillance of morbidity, mortality, and neurodevelopmental outcomes (PDF – 27 KB) in high-risk, extremely low birth weight preterm infants; testing the use of nutritional factors such as donor breastmilk as treatments to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes; and testing the accuracy of new technologies, such as amplitude-integrated electroencephalograms and magnetic resonance imaging, in predicting disease progression and neurodevelopmental outcomes; and
- Retinopathy of prematurity. Testing the safety and effectiveness of inositol (PDF – 28 KB) in preterm infants to prevent developmental disorders of the eye and lung.
In addition, the NRN collected data on the outcomes of extremely preterm infants, using several specific and standardized assessments of infants born at NRN centers between 1998 and 2003. This evidence-based outcome information forms the basis of the NICHD NRN Extremely Preterm Birth Data Outcome Tool, available through the NICHD website. The tool is intended to inform healthcare providers and families about possible infant outcomes based on standardized assessment data collected through the NRN. It is not intended to be the only information that care decisions are based on, nor is it intended to be a definitive means of predicting infant outcomes.
A listing of both ongoing and completed NRN studies and additional details about them are available at https://neonatal.rti.org/studies.cfm.
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Current Sites
Current clinical sites within the NRN are:
- Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
- Case Western Reserve University
- Children’s Mercy Hospital (Kansas City, MO)
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
- Duke University
- Emory University
- Indiana University
- Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Ohio State University Medical Center
- Stanford University
- University of Alabama, Birmingham
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of Iowa
- University of New Mexico
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Rochester
- University of Texas Health Science Center (Houston)
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas)
- Wayne State University
Collaborating clinical sites (collecting follow-up data on recruited subjects) include:
- Tufts New England Medical Center
- University of California, San Diego
- University of Utah
- Yale University
RTI International serves as the Data Coordinating Center (DCC) for the NRN.
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More Information
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Last Reviewed: December 15, 2011
