An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb

Emily A. Partridge, Marcus G. Davey, Matthew A. Hornick, Patrick E. McGovern, Ali Y. Mejaddam, Jesse D. Vrecenak, Carmen Mesas-Burgos, Aliza Olive, Robert C. Caskey, Theodore R. Weiland, Jiancheng Han, Alexander J. Schupper, James T. Connelly, Kevin C. Dysart, Jack Rychik, Holly L. Hedrick, William H. Peranteau and Alan W. Flake ()
Additional contact information
Emily A. Partridge: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Marcus G. Davey: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Matthew A. Hornick: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Patrick E. McGovern: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Ali Y. Mejaddam: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Jesse D. Vrecenak: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Carmen Mesas-Burgos: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Aliza Olive: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Robert C. Caskey: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Theodore R. Weiland: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Jiancheng Han: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Alexander J. Schupper: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
James T. Connelly: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Kevin C. Dysart: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Jack Rychik: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Holly L. Hedrick: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
William H. Peranteau: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Alan W. Flake: Center for Fetal Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract In the developed world, extreme prematurity is the leading cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity due to a combination of organ immaturity and iatrogenic injury. Until now, efforts to extend gestation using extracorporeal systems have achieved limited success. Here we report the development of a system that incorporates a pumpless oxygenator circuit connected to the fetus of a lamb via an umbilical cord interface that is maintained within a closed ‘amniotic fluid’ circuit that closely reproduces the environment of the womb. We show that fetal lambs that are developmentally equivalent to the extreme premature human infant can be physiologically supported in this extra-uterine device for up to 4 weeks. Lambs on support maintain stable haemodynamics, have normal blood gas and oxygenation parameters and maintain patency of the fetal circulation. With appropriate nutritional support, lambs on the system demonstrate normal somatic growth, lung maturation and brain growth and myelination.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15112

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15112

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().