Experimental Lung Therapy Saves Newborn’s Life : Health: Nitric oxide treatment was used at UCI Medical Center to increase flow of oxygen to lungs of infant, who is now back in the arms of his parents.

An experimental therapy that increases the flow of oxygen to the lungs of critically ill newborns was used for the first time at UCI Medical Center this week to save the life of a Mission Viejo infant.

Brennen J. Turbow Marino was the first infant in Southern California to undergo the new, non-invasive treatment that uses nitric oxide to dilate blood vessels in the lungs, and was back in the arms of his parents Friday, UCI doctors said.

UCI Medical Center is the only hospital in Southern California, and one of a handful nationwide, authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to administer the treatment as part of a study.

“It’s a new therapy, and it really turns them around,” said Dr. Robert Turbow, who treated the baby. He said only a few hundred babies nationwide have undergone the nitric oxide treatment.

Parents Karen and John Marino are so happy with their son’s recovery they decided to name him after the doctor who saved him.

“Words couldn’t describe the way I feel, if I were Hemingway,” John Marino said.

“We went from a son who was probably going to die to a son my wife is getting ready to hold.”

Brennen was born Oct. 29 with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, a condition in which the infant has constricted blood vessels in the lungs.

Doctors administered low doses of nitric oxide gas to the infant soon after birth when he showed dangerously low levels of oxygen in his blood. He also had a severe infection, low blood pressure and an inability to clot his blood, Turbow said.

“He was about as sick as a full-term baby ever gets,” Turbow said. However, the infant showed marked improvement after just 12 hours of treatment.

Brennen continued to receive low doses of nitric oxide for three days and was completely taken off his ventilator Wednesday.

“He’s 1 week old today, and he should be starting to feed,” Turbow said Friday.

In nitric oxide treatment, the gas is administered through a ventilator. It has no known complications if the concentrations are monitored, Turbow said.

The traditional therapy for the condition is more invasive. It involves circulating the baby’s blood out of the body, infusing it with oxygen, and then pumping the blood back into the child. While 95% of the infants treated this way survive, some infants can have strokes, bleeding or neurological complications, said Turbow, clinical instructor in neonatology.

Turbow estimated a few hundred babies each year in Southern California could benefit from the new therapy.

The positive side of nitric oxide treatment is that “the baby can end up in the arms of the parents a lot faster,” said Elliot Bloom, a spokesman for UCI Medical Center.

The new therapy could be used on the majority of newborns with constricted blood vessel condition, Turbow said, but it can not be used on those who also have a heart condition.

On the down side, nitric oxide treatment could be dangerous and could inhibit the ability of blood to carry oxygen if concentrations are not monitored, Turbow said. The dosage of nitric oxide administered is about 20 parts per million, he said.

UCI physicians are using nitric oxide therapy under a study approved by the Food and Drug Administration and expect it will be “somewhere around a year” before the technique is used widely, Turbow said. Other physicians involved are Dr. Jack Sills, director of UCI Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit, and Dr. Feizal Waffarn, neonatologist and principal investigator for the study.