Axillary temperature measurement during hypothermia treatment for neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy

Abstract

Objective: To determine the accuracy of axillary temperature relative to core rectal temperature during whole-body therapeutic hypothermia for moderate-to-severe hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. Design: Retrospective audit. Setting: Single tertiary neonatal intensive care unit at The Royal Women's Hospital in Australia. Patients: Fifty-eight term newborn infants with moderate-to-severe hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. Forty infants were treated with whole-body hypothermia between February 2001 and May 2010, 16 of whom were enrolled in the Infant Cooling Evaluation (ICE) trial, and 18 control infants randomised to normothermia in the ICE trial. Intervention: Comparison of simultaneous axill..