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Contact Information:

Study Team
comet@imperial.ac.uk


Thilipan Thaventhiran
thilipan.thaventhiran@kcl.ac.uk


Dr Sudhin Thayyil
s.thayyil@imperial.ac.uk


Dr Hatty Bird
hatty.bird@nihr.ac.uk


Jana Vaskova
jana.vaskova@nihr.ac.uk


Reema Garegrat
r.garegrat@imperial.ac.uk


Dr Sudhin Thayyil
s.thayyil@imperial.ac.uk


Study Location:

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Be Part of Research - Trial Details - Cooling in Mild Encephalopathy (COMET)

Cooling in Mild Encephalopathy (COMET)

Recruiting

Open to: Female / Male

Age: 0 Days - 6 Hours

Medical Conditions

Other disorders originating in the perinatal period


This information is provided directly by researchers, and we recognise that it isn't always easy to understand. We are working with researchers to improve the accessibility of this information. In some summaries, you may come across links to external websites. These websites will have more information to help you better understand the study.


Despite the lack of evidence on safety or efficacy, many clinicians offer whole body therapeutic hypothermia to infants with mild hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, and even to those without any encephalopathy. Such a wide variation in clinical practice within the NHS not only leads to poorer outcomes and may harm infants who would have otherwise done well, but masks improvements in obstetric care and increase litigations.

The COMET trial will establish the safety and efficacy of whole-body hypothermia for mild hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, inform national and international guidelines, and will establish uniform practice across the NHS.

Primary objective
To examine if whole-body hypothermia to 33.5 +0.5°C initiated within 6h of birth and continued for 72h, improves cognitive development at two years of age after mild hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy compared with targeted normothermia at 36.5 +0.5 °C.

Secondary objectives
1. To compare the adverse events in the whole-body hypothermia and targeted normothermia groups.

2. To estimate the cost-effectiveness and economic value of whole-body hypothermia for mild encephalopathy from an NHS and personal social services (PSS) perspective.

COMET is a phase III prospective multi-centre open label two-arm randomised controlled trial with internal pilot and masked outcome assessments. All babies born at or after 36 weeks and requiring prolonged resuscitation at birth (defined as continued resuscitation at 10 minutes after birth or 10-minute Apgar score less than 6) or those with severe birth acidosis admitted to the neonatal unit will be screened. 426 eligible babies will be recruited from six operational delivery networks (ODN) involving a total of 60 NHS hospitals.

The primary outcome is the mean cognitive composite score from the at 24 months. Secondary outcomes will include survival without any neurodisability and microcephaly. Short term outcomes include short term neonatal morbidity and brain injury scores on MR imaging.

Start dates may differ between countries and research sites. The research team are responsible for keeping the information up-to-date.  

The recruitment start and end dates are as follows:

15 Mar 2024 01 Jul 2027

Observational and Interventional

Type: Device;Management of Care;Active Monitoring;



You can take part if:



You may not be able to take part if:


1) Infants who meet the BAPM criteria for whole-body hypothermia 2) Infants without encephalopathy defined as less than two abnormalities on structured neurological examination. 3) Infants with major congenital or chromosomal anomalies identified prior to randomisation. 4) Infants with birthweight < 1800g. 5) Infants who have already received sedation, muscle relaxation, or anti-convulsants prior to neurological assessment. 6) Infants already enrolled in interventional studies.


Below are the locations for where you can take part in the trial. Please note that not all sites may be open.

  • Homerton University Hospital
    London
    Greater London
    E9 6SR
  • Derriford Hospital
    Plymouth
    Devon
    PL6 8DH
  • Hillingdon Hospital
    Uxbridge
    Middlesex
    UB8 3NN
  • Liverpool Womens Hospital
    Liverpool
    Merseyside
    L8 7SS
  • St Michael's Hospital
    Bristol
    BS2 8EG
  • St Mary's Hospital (hq)
    London
    Greater London
    W2 1NY
  • John Radcliffe Hospital
    Oxford
    Oxfordshire
    OX3 9DU
  • The Great Western Hospital
    Swindon
    Wiltshire
    SN3 6BB
  • Royal Preston Hospital
    Preston
    Lancashire
    PR2 9HT
  • Queen Charlotte's Hospital
    London
    Greater London
    W12 0HS
  • Darent Valley Hospital
    Dartford
    Kent
    DA2 8DA
  • William Harvey Hospital (ashford)
    Ashford
    Kent
    TN24 0LZ
  • Worthing Hospital
    Worthing
    West Sussex
    BN11 2DH
  • The Tunbridge Wells Hospital
    Tunbridge Wells
    Kent
    TN2 4QJ
  • Royal Sussex County Hospital
    Brighton
    BN2 5BE
  • Medway Maritime Hospital
    Gillingham
    Kent
    ME7 5NY

Study Team
comet@imperial.ac.uk


Dr Sudhin Thayyil
s.thayyil@imperial.ac.uk


Reema Garegrat
r.garegrat@imperial.ac.uk


Thilipan Thaventhiran
thilipan.thaventhiran@kcl.ac.uk


Dr Sudhin Thayyil
s.thayyil@imperial.ac.uk


Dr Hatty Bird
hatty.bird@nihr.ac.uk


Jana Vaskova
jana.vaskova@nihr.ac.uk



The study is sponsored by Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and funded by NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Co-ordinating Centre (NETSCC) .




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for Trial ID: CPMS 58789

Last updated 11 July 2025

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