Lengths of stay in the hospital and in the neonatal ICU (NICU) for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) were significantly shorter with methadone treatment, compared with morphine treatment, according to a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics.
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Veeral N. Tolia, MD, of Baylor University in Dallas, and his associates, gathered data from NICUs participating in the Clinical Data Warehouse and identified 7,667 singleton infants with no congenital abnormalities treated for NAS with either methadone (15%) or morphine (85%) in the first 7 days of life during 2011-2015.
The median hospital length of stay (LOS) was 18 days (interquartile range, 11-30 days) for infants treated with methadone and 23 days (IQR, 16-33 days) for those treated with morphine (P less than .001). The methadone-treated infants also had a shorter median LOS in the NICU than did the morphine-treated infants: 17 days (IQR, 10-29 days) versus 21 days (IQR, 14-36 days; P less than .001). In multivariable analysis, methadone treatment still was associated with a significantly shorter LOS in both cases. The methadone-treated infants also were significantly less likely to require two medications or three or more medications, compared with the morphine treated infants.
Although there was only a modest difference in LOS, Dr. Tolia and associates consider their findings relevant to clinical practice and are important given that “NAS incidence continues to rise and accounts for a substantial portion of health care utilization, including a fourfold increase in the proportion of neonatal hospital costs of all births covered by Medicaid.”
One of the strengths of this study is the size of its cohort; among its weaknesses is that the Clinical Data Warehouse does not include information on symptom severity, indication for starting therapy, or weaning practices.
The researchers declared no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Tolia VN et al. J Pediatr. 2018 Sep. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.07.061.