RESEARCH ARTICLE
Beyond Hypothermia: Alternative Therapies for Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy
Andrea Hobson1, Julie Baines1, Michael D. Weiss*, 1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 26
Last Page: 40
Publisher Id: TOPHARMJ-7-26
DOI: 10.2174/1874143620130805001
Article History:
Received Date: 23/5/2012Revision Received Date: 26/7/2013
Acceptance Date: 29/7/2013
Electronic publication date: 30/8/2013
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Neonatal encephalopathy remains a significant cause of death and disability worldwide. Therapeutic hypothermia has become a mainstay of therapy and has demonstrated the potential for neuroprotection and repair after neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. However, it has become apparent from published trials that hypothermia alone will not serve as complete protection nor benefit all neonates. The complicated cascade of events in a hypoxic-ischemic insult lends itself to multiple types of therapy, making a multi-faceted approach to treatment attractive. This review critically discusses the broad range of medical therapies currently being studied and summarizes the animal and human studies that have been done to date. Therapies that may act synergistically with cooling therapy are also discussed.
