Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a world-first breakthrough at The Sydney Children’s Hospital, Westmead, Australia.
Researchers have identified Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) as the first biochemical marker that could help detect babies more at risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) while they are alive.
The study published by The Lancet’s eBioMedicine analysed BChE activity in 722 Dried Blood Spots (DBS) taken at birth as part of the Newborn Screening Program, using only samples parents approved for use in de-identified research. BChE was measured in both SIDS and infants dying from other causes and each compared to 10 surviving infants with the same date of birth and gender, according to a news release.
Led by Dr Carmel Harrington, study lead and Honorary Research Fellow at CHW, who lost her own child to SIDS 29 years ago, the study found BChE levels were significantly lower in babies who subsequently died of SIDS compared to living controls and other infant deaths.
BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway and researchers believe its deficiency likely indicates an arousal deficit, which reduces an infant’s ability to wake or respond to the external environment, causing vulnerability to SIDS. SIDS is the unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant less than one year of age, during a period of sleep.
The next steps for the researchers are to begin looking at introducing the BChE biomarker into newborn screening and develop specific interventions to address the enzyme deficiency. It is expected this will take around five years to complete.