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In Utero Indomethacin Alters O₂ [Oxygen] Delivery To The Fetal Ductus Arteriosus : Implications For Persistent Postnatal Patency, Seth Hamlin Goldbarg

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Exposure of the fetus to indomethacin produces constriction of the fetal ductus arteriosus (DA) and hypoxia in the avascular muscle media of the vessel wall. Hypoxia induces cell death, which increases the incidence of patent DA in the newborn period. We used a fetal sheep model to determine the factors that were responsible for indomethacin-induced hypoxia at various degrees of DA constriction. Indomethacin produced DA constriction in all fetuses studied in vivo. Cell death in the DA wall was directly related to the degree of indomethacin-induced DA constriction and was present at both moderate (pressure gradient across DA <16 >mmHg) and …