Background Liver disease is associated with soybean lipid in parenteral nutrition (PN). This has led to the development of alternative intravenous lipid emulsions (ILEs).

Purpose Here we compare the effects of Lipoplus (medium chain triglyceride combined with soybean and fish oil) in treatments of 7 days vs. longer treatments.

Material and methods Retrospective observational study using pharmacotherapeutic records of premature infants who initiated PN between December 2012 and May 2014 in a tertiary care hospital. Infants were Included with a gestational age <34 weeks and birth weight between 0.5 and 2 kg. Data recorded included gender, gestational age, body weight and total (TB), conjugated (CB) and unconjugated bilirubin (UB) (mg/dL). Comparisons were made with t-tests.

Results Of the 17 infants selected, 10 (58.8%) (7 male, 3 female) were treated for 5 to 7 days (Group A) and 7 (41.2%) (5 male, 2 female) were treated for more than a week (Group B). Mean gestational age was 29 weeks for both groups. Average weight at the beginning of PN was 1.37 kg for Group A and 1.03 kg for Group B.

Differences vs. baseline were observed between the two treatments:

Group A = CB: 0.35 vs. 0.39; p = n.s. UB: 7.9 vs. 11.25; p = 0.04. TB: 8.25 vs. 11.61; p = 0.04.

Group B = CB: 1.71 vs. 1.5; p = n.s. UB: 7.74 vs. 6.15; p = n.s. TB: 9.46 vs. 4.47; p = 0.04.

A significant increase in CB and TB was observed in group A, therefore a significant decrease in TB was detected in group B.

Conclusion We found that treatments longer than 7 days with new ILEs significantly lowered TB levels in premature infants as described previously.¹ On the other hand, shorter treatments with alternative ILEs might have an effect similar to the use of soybean oil–based emulsion in that previous study, where CB even showed a significant increase.

References and/or Acknowledgements

1. Rayyan et al. 2012

References and/or AcknowledgementsNo conflict of interest.