1 Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, and Boston Hospital for Women, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115
The recent commentary by Heird and Driscoll1 points out their difficulty of continuously running peripheral; intravenous infusions (IV) on small premature infants. They indicate that the success achieved by Cashore et al.2 using total, or near total, peripheral intravenous nutrition may not be easily obtained by others less able to maintain peripheral IVs around the clock. No doubt Cashore et al. were able to maintain peripheral IVs better than many because their use of Intralipid eliminates the need for very hyperosmotic infusates of dextrose.