TOCOPHEROL ADMINISTRATION AND HEMOLYSIS I N LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT NEWBORNS

Vitamin E, the most important lipid antioxidant, is able to stop the f ree radicals from degradating polyunsaturated fatty acids of biomembra nes. Low birth-weight newborns show less quantities of vitamin E than term healty newborns. The vitamin E can be useful to those newborns af fected by many neonatal diseases, favoured or worsened by oxygen-free radicals. In order to value, during the first week of life, the eventu al protective effect of the acetate tocopherol (T), given precociously , toward the reduction either of the Htc or of the bilirubinemia, 224 newborns weighened 1.01-2.49 kg were studied: 120 were treated with T im for 4 days and 104 were included in the control group. No clinical complications due to the use of T were noted. The mean reduction of th e Htc (Delta Htc), from the first to the sixth days of life, was 6.5 /- 5.5% in the newborns treated with T vs 1.04 +/- 7.3% in the control group (p < 0.00001). The difference between the newborns treated with T and the control group was observed also dividing the subjects in tw o weight groups: 1.01-2.0 kg (Delta Htc 5.0 +/- 3.4 vs 10.7 +/- 7.2%; p = 0.0015) and 2.01-2.49 kg (Delta Htc 6.8 +/- 5.9 vs 10.3 +/- 7.4%; p = 0.0014). The T administration could have influenced bilirubin leve l. less phototherapy was given to the newborns treated with T (28 % vs 40 % of the control group; p = 0.042). Indeed, the mean peack bilirub in level in the newborns treated with T, who did not recived photother apy, was les too (7.87 vs 9.76 mg/dl; p < 0.0001). The hemolisys reduc tion in the low birth-weight newborns following the precocious adminis tration of vitamin E can suggest its prophyilactic use in this group o f subjects. Otherwise, some Autors refferred contrastant resoults and complications to the use of vitamin E. For a better definition of the drive lines of such a prophylaxis other studies are necessary.