Innovative Noninvasive Method Shows Promise for Early Detection of Dangerous Intestinal Disease in Preterm Infants

A new noninvasive technology, called broadband optical spectroscopy (BOS), has promise to reliably detect necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants at earlier stages, before this devastating intestinal disease progresses enough to be visible on x-ray, according to a first-in-human study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery.

NEC strikes suddenly and progresses quickly. At early stages, it can be treated with antibiotics, while more advanced disease often requires surgery and carries a high risk of complications and death. So far, there has been no reliable way to detect it early.

“NEC is one of the most feared diagnoses in any neonatal intensive care unit, and the field has been searching for an early detection tool for decades,” said senior author Seth Goldstein, MD, MPhil, pediatric general and thoracic surgeon at Lurie Children’s and Associate Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We are excited that our new handheld device reliably distinguishes NEC from healthy tissue within two minutes, and that it can be used at the bedside without subjecting these fragile babies to any pain or radiation. We hope that additional studies confirm our findings that this tool can screen for early stages of NEC.”

The noninvasive BOS device placed gently on the infant’s abdomen measures infrared light reflecting off the intestines and is able to detect color changes that surgeons recognize as indicative of threatened tissue in NEC.

Dr. Goldstein, working with lead author and research fellow Ashley Dodd, MD, and colleagues, partnered with Vadim Backman’s biomedical engineering lab at Northwestern University to develop BOS.

After achieving prior success using BOS for NEC detection in a mouse model, researchers tested the device in 96 premature infants who were younger than 36 weeks of gestation and did not have congenital cardiac conditions or abdominal wall defects.

“Our results show that BOS is a safe and feasible technology that produced detectable signal changes in premature infants with NEC,” said Dr. Goldstein. “These findings suggest that BOS is a promising and potentially groundbreaking modality for screening and early detection of NEC.”

This research was supported by The Gerber Foundation, Catalyst award from the Center of Physical Genomics at Northwestern University and philanthropic support from Rob and Kristin Goldman and the Christina Carinato Charitable Foundation. Fundings: National Institutes of Health Grants (NIH) grants U54CA268084, R01CA228272, and R01CA225002. Support also came from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32HD111386. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is a nonprofit organization committed to providing access to exceptional care for every child. It is the only independent, research-driven children’s hospital in Illinois and one of less than 35 nationally. This is where the top doctors go to train, practice pediatric medicine, teach, advocate, research and stay up to date on the latest treatments. Exclusively focused on children, all Lurie Children’s resources are devoted to serving their needs. Research at Lurie Children’s is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, which is focused on improving child health, transforming pediatric medicine and ensuring healthier futures through the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Lurie Children’s is the pediatric training ground for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It is ranked as one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.