Efficacy of intermediate-dose oral erythromycin on very low birth weight infants with feeding intolerance.

Background Erythromycin is generally used as a prokinetic agent for the treatment of feeding intolerance in preterm infants; however, results from previous studies significantly vary due to different medication dosages, routes of administration, and therapy durations. The effectiveness and safety of intermediate-dose oral erythromycin in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants with feeding intolerance was examined in this study. Methods Between November 2007 and August 2009, 45 VLBW infants with feeding intolerance, who were all at least 14 days old, were randomly allocated to a treatment group and administered 5mg/kg oral erythromycin every 6hours for 14 days ( n =19). Another set of randomly selected infants was allocated to the control group, which was not administered erythromycin ( n =26). Results The number of days required to achieve full enteral feeding (36.5±7.4 vs. 54.7±23.3 days, respectively; p =0.01), the duration of parenteral nutrition ( p p p Conclusions Intermediate-dose oral erythromycin is effective and safe for the treatment of feeding intolerance in VLBW infants. The incidences of PNAC and ≥ stage II NEC were significant lower in the erythromycin group.