Literature evaluation of selenium and relevant clinical outcomes
| Relevant clinical outcome |
Study design |
Patients (or participants) |
Selenium supplementation | Results | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BPD | Prospective observational | 79 infants with VLBW or GA ≤32 | - | Duration of oxygen dependence increased by 58% when the plasma selenium level was lowered by 0.1 μM/L | Darlow et al. [29] |
| Prospectiveobservational | 38 preterm infants with GA ≤32 | - | Serum selenium concentration was lower at 1 month after birth in patients with BPD (38.5±14.1 vs. 45.4±18.7 mcg/L, P=0.02) | Mostafa-Gharehbaghi et al. [30] | |
| Prospective observational | 54 preterm infants with GA ≤30 | - | No significant difference in selenium level between infants with and without BPD at 1 month after birth (P=0.40) | Peirovifar et al. [31] | |
| ROP | Prospective | Observation group: 30 preterm infants who had high risk of ROP Control: 18 normal infants |
- | Preterm infants with ROP showed much lower level of serum selenium than normal infants at term (121.74±97.54 vs. 202.92±44.71 mcg/L, P<0.01) | Yang et al. [33] |
| RCT | 534 VLBW infants | 7 mcg/kg/day (PN) or 5 mcg/kg/day (oral) | No significant difference [relative risk 0.91 (0.69–1.21)] | Darlow et al. [34] | |
| RCT | 38 preterm infants | 3 mcg/kg/day (PN) | No significant difference | Daniels et al. [35] | |
| Sepsis | RCT | 534 VLBW infants | 7 mcg/kg/day (PN) or 5 mcg/kg/day (oral) | Fewer infants in the selenium group experienced nosocomial sepsis after the first week of life (25.1% vs. 33.3%, P=0.038) | Darlow et al. [34] |
| RCT | 38 preterm infants | 3 mcg/kg/day (PN) | Incidence of sepsis, defined as microbiologically confirmed or requiring antibiotics for at least 5 days, was greater in the PN without selenium group (79%, n=15 vs. 42%, n=8, P≤0.05) | Daniels et al. [35] | |
| RCT | 90 VLBW infants | 10 mcg/day (oral) | The total incidence of any LOS (i.e., culture-proven as well as probable sepsis) was significantly reduced by selenium supplementation [7/45 (15.55%) in selenium vs. 22/45 (48.88%) in placebo, P=0.001] | Aggarwal et al. [36] | |
| Hypothyroidism | Prospective | 29 ELBW infants | 2 mcg/kg/day (PN) | No significant correlation between serum selenium level and hypothyroidism | Klinger et al. [10] |
BPD = bronchopulmonary dysplasia; ROP = retinopathy of prematurity; RCT = randomized clinical trial; VLBW = very low birth weight; GA = gestational age; ELBW = extremely low birth weight; PN = parenteral nutrition; LOS = late-onset sepsis.