Early Identification of Preterm Neonates at Birth With a Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) When Ultrasound Gestational Age Dating Is Unavailable: Protocol for a Validation Study

Early identification of preterm neonates at birth with a Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) when ultrasound gestational age dating is unavailable: A validation study

BACKGROUND

In low resource settings recall of the date of the mother's last menstrual period may be unreliable and due to limited availability of prenatal ultrasound, gestational age of newborns may not be assessed reliably. Preterm babies are at high risk of morbidity and mortality so an alternative strategy is to identify them soon after birth is needed for early referral and management.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy in assessing prematurity of newborn, over and above birthweight, using a pictorial Simplified Gestational Age Score adapted for use as a Tablet App.

METHODS

Two trained nurse midwives, blinded to each other's assessment and the actual gestational age of the baby used the app to assess gestational age at birth in 3 hospitals based on the following 4 parameters-newborn's posture, skin texture, breast and genital development. Inter-observer variation was evaluated and the optimal scoring cut-off to detect preterm birth was determined. Sensitivity and specificity of gestational age score using the tablet was estimated using combinations of last menstrual period and ultrasound as reference standards to assess preterm birth. The predictive accuracy of the score using the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve was also determined. To account for potential reference standard bias, we also evaluated the score using latent class models.

RESULTS

A total of 8,591 live singleton births whose gestational age by last menstrual period and ultrasound was within 1 weeks of each other were enrolled. There was strong agreement between assessors (concordance correlation coefficient 0.77 (95% CI 0.76-0.78) and Fleiss' kappa was 0.76 (95% CI 0.76-0.78). The optimal cut-off for the score to predict preterm was 13. Irrespective of the reference standard, the specificity of the score was 90% and sensitivity varied from 40-50% and the predictive accuracy between 74%-79% for the reference standards. The likelihood ratio of a positive score varied between 3.75-4.88 while the same for a negative likelihood ratio consistently varied between 0.57-0.72. Latent class models showed similar results indicating no reference standard bias.

CONCLUSION

Gestational age scores had strong inter-observer agreement, robust prediction of preterm births simplicity of use by nurse midwives and can be a useful tool in resource-limited scenarios.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02408783.

Reporting of offspring data in diabetes, HIV infection and hypertension trials during pregnancy: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Clinical trials are conducted during pregnancy to evaluate benefits and risks of medicines for mother and child. The safety of maternal treatments is a key issue for healthcare professionals and parents.

OBJECTIVE

To analyse offspring data reported in clinical trials in pregnant women with diabetes, HIV infection or hypertension (three of the most common diseases in women of childbearing potential) and either treated prior to pregnancy for these chronic diseases or diagnosed and treated during pregnancy.

METHODS

PubMed and Embase (1 January 1997 to 31 December 2017) were searched for drug trials in pregnant women with diabetes, HIV infection or hypertension. Titles and abstracts were screened, followed by a full-text review of eligible articles. Inclusion criteria were interventional clinical trials in pregnant women treated with medication and full text in English. Trial characteristics, maternal and offspring data were extracted. Data were summarised by disease and study. Twelve key items were considered for the offspring.

RESULTS

Overall, 196 articles reporting 132 clinical trials (diabetes n=55; HIV n=59; hypertension n=18) were included. Key offspring data were frequently not reported, for example, number of births (diabetes: 22/55, 40%; HIV: 14/59, 24%; hypertension: 10/18, 56%). Congenital malformations were often not reported with sufficient detail (diabetes: 40/55, 73%; HIV: 39/59, 66%; hypertension: 17/18, 94%). Similar observations were made for other key items (eg, fetal losses, neonatal deaths).

CONCLUSION

Under-reporting of key data for the offspring was frequent in publications of clinical trials in pregnant women with diabetes, HIV infection or hypertension making the assessment of the benefit-risk ratio of treatment options during pregnancy difficult.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42017057024.