Credé's prophylaxis

Credé procedure is the practice of washing a newborn's eyes with a 2% silver nitrate solution to protect against neonatal conjunctivitis caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Credé's prophylaxis
ICD-10-PCST81.40XA

The Credé procedure was developed by the German physician Carl Siegmund Franz Credé who implemented it in his hospital in Leipzig in 1880.[1] Between 1881 and 1883, Credé published three papers in Archiv für Gynäkologie, each titled "Die Verhütung der Augenentzündung der Neugeborenen" (Prevention of inflammatory eye disease in the newwborn), describing his method and its results.[1][note 1] The original procedure called for a 2% silver nitrate solution administered immediately after birth; however, this was eventually reduced to a 1% silver nitrate solution to reduce chemical irritation to the newborn's eyes.[2]

In the 1980s, silver nitrate was replaced by erythromycin and tetracycline treatments, which are better tolerated by the eye and more effective against Chlamydia trachomatis in addition to N. gonorrhea.[3]

Notes

  1. In 2001, the World Health Organization selected the first paper of this series as a "ground-breaking contribution to public health" and published an English translation along with expert commentary in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.[2]

References

  1. Axel Schmidt (2007). "Gonorrheal othalmia neonatorum: Historic impact of Credé's eye prophylaxis". In Schroten H, Wirth S (eds.). Pediatric Infections Diseases Revisited. Springer Science+Business. pp. 95–116. ISBN 978-3-7643-7997-1.
  2. Schaller U, Klauss V (2001). "Is Credé's prophylaxis for ophthalmia neonatorum still valid?". Bulletin of the World Health Organization. World Health Organization. 79 (3): 262–266. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  3. Kapoor VS, Evans JR, Vedula SS (September 2020). "Interventions for preventing ophthalmia neonatorum". Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 9: CD001862. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD001862.pub4. PMID 32959365.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.