Therapeutic Zinc in Childhood Pneumonia
The aim of this study is to assess whether zinc given as adjuvant therapy to standard antibiotic treatment in children hospitalized for severe pneumonia reduces the duration of the severe illness and risk of treatment failure. A randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical trial will be conducted at the Kanti Hospital.
|Study Design:||Allocation: Randomized
Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double Blind (Subject, Caregiver, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary Purpose: Treatment
|Official Title:||Efficacy of Zinc as Adjuvant Therapy in the Treatment of Severe Pneumonia in Nepalese Children at the Kanti Children's Hospital|
- Time to cessation of severe pneumonia [ Time Frame: Within 2 weeks after enrollment ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
- The period starting from enrolment to the beginning of a 24-hour consecutive period of absence of lower chest indrawing, of hypoxia and of any danger signs. [ Time Frame: Recovery from pneumonia within 2 weeks ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
|Study Start Date:||January 2006|
|Study Completion Date:||July 2008|
|Primary Completion Date:||July 2008 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)|
Zinc sulphate 10 or 20 mg per day
Drug: Zinc (zinc sulphate)
Dissolvable zinc tablet 10 mg elemental zinc per day for infants 20 mg elemental zinc per day for children 12 to 35 months
Placebo Comparator: Placebo
Nepal has an under-five mortality rate of 91/1000 live births. Pneumonia, one of the major killers accounts for the death of 25,000 - 35,000 Nepalese children every year. It is estimated that, on an average, of 1000 children <5 years of age that visit health facilities, 90 have pneumonia of which 4.2 have severe pneumonia. At the Kanti Children's Hospital, respiratory diseases are the most frequent reason for admission and the second most frequent cause of child death Zinc, an important micronutrient, is crucial for the normal function of the immune system as well as the integrity of the respiratory epithelium. Zinc deficiency is associated with an increased incidence and severity of diarrhea and respiratory tract infections. The preventive effect of zinc on diarrheal and respiratory illness has been well documented.
Early in an infection zinc is shifted into the liver from the plasma, bone, skin and intestines. For a child with initial low zinc levels, even relatively trivial infections may cause entry into the vicious cycle of reduced plasma zinc and increased infection severity. Administration of zinc during the acute illness may help in reducing the severity of illness.
The therapeutic effect of zinc in acute diarrhea has been well documented. In a study conducted at Bhaktapur, Nepal, in children 6 to 36 months of age, supplementation with zinc was found to be highly effective in the treatment of acute diarrhea.
The Kanti Children's Hospital in Kathmandu serves as a general and referral hospital for children from all parts of the country. Approximately 25% of all admissions to this hospital are due to pneumonia. Being the only well recognized children's hospital, there is always a constraint for available beds for children presenting with pneumonia. Zinc as an adjuvant to standard treatment of pneumonia with antimicrobials was found to hasten recovery from severe pneumonia in children less than 2 years of age in Bangladesh . If we were to conduct a similar study and prove that zinc does in fact help to shorten the duration of illness in children with severe pneumonia, it would go a long way in contributing to improve case management.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00252304
|Kanti Children Hospital|
|Principal Investigator:||Sudha Basnet, MD||Department of Child Health, Institute of Medicine, Tribhuwan University, Katmandu, Nepal|
|Study Director:||Tor A Strand, MD, PhD||Centre For International Health|
|Study Chair:||Halvor Sommerfelt, MD, PhD||Centre For International Health|
|Study Chair:||Nita Bhandari, MBBS, PhD||Centre For International Health|
|Study Director:||Prakash S Shrestha, MD||Child Health Research Project, Department of Child Health, Institute of Medicine, Maharajganj:|
|Study Chair:||Ramesh K Adhikari, MD||Child Health Research Project, Department of Child Health, Institute of Medicine, Maharajganj:|