Table 5.

A summary of five on-going studies

	Jacobs 2007 [[46]	Lozano 2008 [[47]	Al-Hosni 2010 [[48]	Patole 2009 [[49]	Underwood 2009 [[50]
Location of study	Australia	Colombia	USA	Australia	USA
Participants - inclusion criteria	<32 weeks gestation, <1500 g birth weight, 1–3 days old	Birth weight <2000 grams, < 48 hours of age, admission in NICU, Hemodynamic-ally stable	Extremely Low Birth weight infants: < 1000 grams, 1 to 14 old, intention to start enteral feeds	32 weeks Gestation and 6 days, <1500g birth weight, ready to commence on enteral feeds for up to 12 hours	< 500grams birth weight, age less than 33 weeks gestation, exclusively formula fed
Probiotic bacteria used	Bifidobacteriuminfantis, BifidobacteriumBifidus, Streptococcus thermophilus	Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17938	Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, Bifidobacteriuminfantis	Lactobacillus acidophilus 375 million, bifidobacteriumbifidum, bifidobacteria longus	1. ProlactPlus
					2. GOS
					3. Bifidobacteriuminfantis
					4. Bifidobacteriumanimalis
Dose	1X109	1X108 CFU in 5 drops of oil suspension 1/ day until discharge.	L rhamnosus: 500 million cfu, B.infantis: 500 million cfu	L. acidophilus:375 m organisms, B bifidum, B. longus: 125 million organisms	1. week 1 95:5 to week 5 75:25
					2. week: 0.25g/dL, to week 5: 2.0 g/dL
					3. week 1: 5X107, to week 5: 4.2 X109
					4. week 1: 5X107, to week 5: 4.2 X109
Start date of study	July- 2007	August 2008	February 2008	June 2009	June 2009
Reported Outcomes	Sepsis,	Sepsis	Average weight gain	Sepsis	Fecal microflora
	NEC	NEC	Growth velocity	NEC
	Death	Death	Feed tolerance	All-cause mortality
	Frequency of events		Volume of feed/day	Time to reach full feeds (150 mls/kg/day)
	Length of hospital admission			Gut colonisation by probiotic
	Number of antibiotic courses
	Days to full enteral feeds