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RecruitingNCT04106479Updated Jun 17, 2025

NIRS in Congenital Heart Defects - Correlation With Echocardiography

An observational study in Congenital Heart Defect, Single-ventricle and Coarctation of Aorta, sponsored by McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Recruiting at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 0 Days to 7 Days. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-06-17.

Sponsored by McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre · Observational

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Oct 2019; still recruiting 7 years 1 month later.
Study type
Observational
Model
Cohort
Time perspective
Retrospective
Enrollment
100
Ages
0 Days to 7 Days
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Neonatal patients with congenital heart defects (CHD) have changing physiology in the context of transitional period. Patients with CHD are at risk of low perfusion status or abnormal pulmonary blood flow. Near infrared spectroscopy has been used in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) to measure end-organ perfusion. The investigator plan on monitoring newborns with CHD admitted to the NICU with NIRS and echocardiography during the first week of life and correlate measures of perfusion from Dopplers to cerebral and renal NIRS.

Read the detailed description

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a noninvasive technology that uses infrared light to measure Oxygen levels in tissue or organs. However, the use of this monitoring tool has not been the standard of care in the immediate post-natal life. The investigator wish to study this way of monitoring Oxygen, which consists of using a sticker on the skin of the forehead and the skin of the abdomen to continuously monitor the Oxygen content of the brain and the kidneys and compare NIRS values in the CHD population to echocardiographic measures of blood flow and heart function to see if/how this simple, non-invasive tool could help us to closely monitor Oxygen in babies with CHD.

The NIRS probe (sticker) will be put on the side of the abdomen (the flank to monitor the kidney saturation of oxygen) and on the forehead (to monitor the brain saturation of oxygen) for 7 days or until the baby is discharged home, has a procedure in cath-lab or has surgery. An echocardiography will take place daily (for up to 7 days, or up to discharge, or up to cardiac intervention) during the day and should last about 15- 20 minutes. Newborns will be recruited during the fetal consultation with the cardiologist or neonatologist; or will be recruited during their neonatal admission. Only newborns admitted to the NICU will be eligible to the study.

The investigator would like to better understand the way babies with cardiac conditions transition once they are born and into their first week of life. During that important time, there are a lot of changes that can impact the cardiac adaptation: vessels in the lungs that relax, vessels in the body that contract. Echocardiography and NIRS may help us better appreciate these changes by evaluating the delivery of oxygen to organs. Echocardiography may reveal some information about this adaptation by looking at the cardiac performance by ultrasound and blood flow patterns.

Approximately 100 participants from this hospital will take part in this study.

02

Conditions studied

  • Congenital Heart Defect
  • Single-ventricle
  • Coarctation of Aorta
  • Atrioventricular Canal
  • Hypoplastic Left Heart
  • Transposition of Great Vessels
  • Interrupted Aortic Arch
  • Tricuspid Atresia
  • Pulmonary Atresia
  • Aortic Atresia
  • Tetralogy of Fallot
03

In context

Heart Defects, Congenital

991 studies on the registry are indexed under Heart Defects, Congenital; 251 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 100 is below the median of 119 across 440 observational studies indexed under Heart Defects, Congenital.

Browse Heart Defects, Congenital studies →

Lead sponsor

McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre is the lead sponsor of 421 studies on the registry; 105 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
0 Days to 7 Days
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No
Sampling method
Non-probability sample

Study population

All newborns with tetralogy of fallot, truncus arteriosus, D-transposition of great arteries, PS, AS, coarctation of the aorta, DILV, AVC, DORV, HLHS, TA and PAIVS consecutively admitted at our institution (Montreal Children's Hospital) neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) from January 2018 to January 2020.

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

A prospective study will be conducted of all newborns with tetralogy of fallot, trucus arteriosus, D-transposition of great arteries, PS, AS, coarctation of the aorta, DILV, AVC, DORV, HLHS, TA and PAIVS consecutively admitted at our institution (Montreal Children's Hospital) neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) from January 2018 to January 2020. Patients with CHD will be compared to a control population of term infants admitted and monitored in the NICU with antenatal suspicion of coarctation, ruled-out postnatally.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

Patients will be excluded if premature less than 34 weeks of estimated gestational age (GA) at birth or if parents do not consent. Parental consent can be withdrawn at any time during the study.

05

Study design

Observational model
Cohort
Time perspective
Retrospective
Enrollment
100 participants (estimated)
Patient registry
No

Interventions

  • DeviceNIRS evaluation

    NIRS will be used for measurement of cerebral and renal saturation.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Correlation between cerebral saturation and ACA doppler

    Time frame: Measures from Day 0 to Day7

  2. Correlation between aortic doppler and renal NIRS measures

    Time frame: Measures from Day 0 to Day7

Secondary outcomes

  1. Correlation between LV performance by STE and Csat and Rsat by NIRs

    Time frame: Measures from Day 0 to Day7

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Altit G, Bhombal S, Chock VY. End-organ saturations correlate with aortic blood flow estimates by echocardiography in the extremely premature newborn - an observational cohort study. BMC Pediatr. 2021 Jul 12;21(1):312. doi: 10.1186/s12887-021-02790-1. PubMed 34253175 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Jun 17, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04106479
Collaborators
Medtronic
Responsible party
Gabriel Altit (Neonatologist, McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre) — Principal investigator
First posted
Sep 27, 2019
Start date
Oct 11, 2019
Primary completion
Apr 1, 2023
Completion
Dec 1, 2025 (estimated)
Last update
Jun 17, 2025

Study contacts

Gabriel Altit, MD
Contact
gabriel.altit@mcgill.ca
514-412-4452
Jennifer Gardner
Contact
jennifer.gardner@muhc.mcgill.ca
514-412-4400 ext. 37805
Gabriel Altit
principal investigator · McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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