The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Phenobarbital Compared with Phenytoin for the Treatment of Neonatal Seizures
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Seizures occur in 1 to 2 percent of neonates admitted to an intensive care unit. The treatment is usually with either phenobarbital or phenytoin, but the efficacy of the two drugs has not been compared directly. METHODS: From 1990 to 1995, we studied 59 neonates with seizures that were confirmed by electroencephalography. The neonates were randomly assigned to receive either phenobarbital or phenytoin intravenously, at doses sufficient to achieve free plasma concentrations of 25 microg per milliliter for phenobarbital and 3 microg per milliliter for phenytoin. Neonates whose seizures were not controlled by the assigned drug were then treated with both drugs. Seizure control was assessed by electroencephalographic criteria. RESULTS: Seizures were controlled in 13 of the 30 neonates assigned to receive phenobarbital (43 percent) and 13 of the 29 neonates assigned to receive phenytoin (45 percent; P=1.00). When combined treatment is considered, seizure control was achieved in 17 (57 percent) of the neonates assigned to receive phenobarbital first and 18 (62 percent) of those assigned to receive phenytoin first (P=0.67). The severity of the seizures was a stronger predictor of the success of treatment than was the assigned agent. Neonates with mild seizures or with seizures that were decreasing in severity before treatment were more likely to have their seizures end, regardless of the treatment assignment. CONCLUSIONS: Phenobarbital and phenytoin are equally but incompletely effective as anticonvulsants in neonates. With either drug given alone, the seizures were controlled in fewer than half of the neonates.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Phenobarbital for Febrile Seizures — Effects on Intelligence and on Seizure Recurrence
Farwell, J. R., Lee, Y. J., Hirtz, D. G., Sulzbacher, S. I., Ellenberg, J. H., & Nelson, K. B. (1990) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejm199002083220604 · Cited by 561
Consequences of neonatal seizures in the rat: Morphological and behavioral effects
Holmes, G. L., Gairsa, J., Chevassus‐Au‐Louis, N., & Ben‐Ari, Y. (1998) · Annals of Neurology · doi:10.1002/ana.410440602 · Cited by 387
Phenobarbital and diphenylhydantoin levels inneonates with seizures
Painter, M. J., Pippenger, C. E., MacDonald, H., & Pitlick, W. H. (1978) · The Journal of Pediatrics · doi:10.1016/s0022-3476(78)80034-1 · Cited by 145
Self-citationPhenobarbital-Induced Brain Growth Retardation in Artificially Reared Rat Pups
Díaz, J., Schain, R. J., & Bailey, B. G. (2009) · Biology of the Neonate · doi:10.1159/000240998 · Cited by 124
Recurrent Seizures in the Developing Brain Are Harmful
Wasterlain, C. G. (1997) · Epilepsia · doi:10.1111/j.1528-1157.1997.tb01244.x · Cited by 124
Efficacy of phenobarbital monotherapy in treatment of neonatal seizures—relationship to blood levels
Gal, P., TOBACK, J. W., Boer, H. R., Erkan, N. V., & Wells, T. J. (1982) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/wnl.32.12.1401 · Cited by 64
Clonazepam pharmacokinetics and therapeutic efficacy in neonatal seizures
Andr, M., Boutroy, M., Dubruc, C., Thénot, J. P., Bianchetti, G., Sola, L., Vert, P., & Morselli, P. L. (1986) · European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology · doi:10.1007/bf00542419 · Cited by 49
Lorazepam in the Treatment of Refractory Neonatal Seizures: A Pilot Study
Deshmukh, A., Wittert, W., Schnitzler, E., & Mangurten, H. H. (1986) · American journal of diseases of children · doi:10.1001/archpedi.1986.02140240088032 · Cited by 47
Survey of treatment practices for neonatal seizures.
Massingale, T. W., & Buttross, S. (1993) · PubMed · Cited by 27
Neonatal Phenobarbital and Phenytoin Binding Profiles
Painter, M. J., Minnigh, M. B., GAUS, L. M., Scher, M. S., Brozanski, B. S., & Alvin, J. D. (1994) · The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology · doi:10.1002/j.1552-4604.1994.tb01999.x · Cited by 25
Self-citation
Cited by
Guerrini, R. (2006) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(06)68182-8 · Cited by 848
Selection of Antiepileptic Drug Polytherapy Based on Mechanisms of Action: The Evidence Reviewed
Deckers, C. L. P., Czuczwar, S. J., Hekster, Y. A., Kewser, A., Kubova, H., Meinardi, H., Patsalos, P. N., Renier, W. O., & Van Rijn, C. M. (2000) · Epilepsia · doi:10.1111/j.1528-1157.2000.tb00111.x · Cited by 331
A randomised controlled trial of bumetanide in the treatment of autism in children
Lemonnier, E., Degrez, C., Phelep, M., Tyzio, R., Josse, F., Grandgeorge, M., Hadjikhani, N., & Ben-Ari, Y. (2012) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/tp.2012.124 · Cited by 322
Bumetanide enhances phenobarbital efficacy in a neonatal seizure model
Dzhala, V. I., Brumback, A. C., & Staley, K. J. (2008) · Annals of Neurology · doi:10.1002/ana.21229 · Cited by 274
Wang, D. D., & Kriegstein, A. R. (2011) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhq124 · Cited by 148
Metadata
- Authors
- Painter, M. J., Scher, M. S., Stein, A. D., Armatti, S., Wang, Z., Gardiner, J. C., Paneth, N., Minnigh, B., & Alvin, J.
- Venue
- New England Journal of Medicine
- Publisher
- Massachusetts Medical Society
- Published
- 1999-08-12
- Volume
- 341
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 485-489
- ISSN
- 0028-4793 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-4406
- OpenAlex
- W2322833765
- Cited by
- 616
- References
- 11
- FWCI
- 5.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Phenobarbital Compared with Phenytoin for the Treatment of Neonatal Seizures. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1056/nejm199908123410704
- The paper
- Painter, M. J., Scher, M. S., Stein, A. D., Armatti, S., Wang, Z., Gardiner, J. C., Paneth, N., Minnigh, B., & Alvin, J. (1999). Phenobarbital Compared with Phenytoin for the Treatment of Neonatal Seizures. New England Journal of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejm199908123410704
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.