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Efficacy and safety of breast milk eye drops in infants with eye discharge
Author(s) -
Sugimura Tetsu,
Seo Tomoko,
Terasaki Nami,
Ozaki Yukiko,
Rikitake Noriko,
Okabe Rumiko,
Matsushita Masami
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.15628
Subject(s) - medicine , eye drop , breast milk , ophthalmology , biochemistry , chemistry
Aim Breast milk (BM) contains various protective components, such as immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, lysozyme, oligosaccharides and immune cell subsets. We evaluated the effectiveness of BM eye drops in infants with eye discharge in a randomised controlled study. Methods Subjects were breastfed infants aged ≤180 days, with eye discharge. We randomly assigned patients to receive eye drops of BM or sodium azulene sulphonate hydrate 0.02% ophthalmic solution (OS). The patients received drop of BM or OS for 7 days. Improvement score of eye discharge in the groups was compared using a non‐inferiority test. Results The number of patients improved eye discharge was 119/155 (76.8%) and 119/157 (75.8%) in BM and OS groups, respectively. There were no significant differences between groups. The improvement score in eye discharge was 1.76 ± 0.91 in the BM group and 1.71 ± 0.96 in the OS group. The BM group was considered non‐inferior to the OS group. Conclusions This study demonstrated that BM is no less effective than OS in infants with eye discharge aged ≤6 months. The results suggested that the use of breast milk as eye drops could be considered as a first‐line treatment for infants aged ≤6 months with eye discharge.