The effect of antenatal magnesium sulfate on intraventricular hemorrhage in premature infants: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis study was to determine the pooled estimate of the effect of antenatal magnesium sulfate (MgSO(4)) on intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in premature infants. METHODS: Two review authors independently searched all randomized clinical trials from international databases, including Medline (PubMed), Web of Sciences, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and Research Registers of ongoing trials (ClinicalTrials.gov), from January 1989 to August 2017. Two independent review authors were responsible for data collection. After extracting the necessary information from the evaluated articles, metaanalysis of the data was performed using Stata version 14. Also, sources of heterogeneity among studies were determined by Meta regression. RESULTS: In this study, among 126 articles that were extracted from primary studies, 7 papers that evaluated the effect of MgSO(4) on IVH were eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The results of the meta-analysis showed that pooled relative risk (95% confidence interval [CI]) was 0.80 (95% CI, 0.63 to 1.03) for the effect of MgSO(4) on IVH. CONCLUSION: Results of this study showed that although MgSO(4) had a protective effect on IVH in premature infants, this effect was not statistically significant. Further studies are needed to determine the best dosage, timing, and gestational age to achieve the optimum effect of MgSO(4) on IVH. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) Identifier: CRD42019119610