Dear Editor:
Thank you for critically reviewing our manuscript titled “Gut Microbes and Circulating Cytokines in Preterm Infants with Growth Failure.” We appreciate your time, effort, and feedback.
This analysis includes 27 preterm infants, 14 of whom developed growth failure. Due to the sample size, we were unable to perform multivariable analyses to adjust for confounders such as mode of delivery, days of parenteral nutrition, days of antibiotic treatment, and the proportion of parent’s milk to donor milk. None of the infants in the study received formula at the time of sample collection, but there are emerging data that donor milk alters the infant’s gut microbiota [1]. Given the limitations of our sample size and the statistical methodology employed, we are unable to draw firm clinical conclusions.
We hope that investigators find our research hypothesis-generating. This pilot study suggests that gut microbiota are altered in infants born prematurely who develop growth failure at hospital discharge despite a similar nutritional prescription. Future studies should include a larger and more diverse sample size to address potential microbial mechanisms for growth failure in preterm infants.
Conflict of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Funding
The authors reported no funding received for this study
References
- 1.Kumbhare S.V., Jones W.D., Fast S., Bonner C., Jong G., Van Domselaar G., et al. Source of human milk (mother or donor) is more important than fortifier type (human or bovine) in shaping the preterm infant microbiome. Cell Rep. Med. 2022;3(9) doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100712. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]