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ORPHA:70588

Meconium aspiration syndrome

medium confidenceDisorder

Publications

6,260

92.7th percentile

Trials

18

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,108

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

5/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Meconium aspiration syndrome is a pulmonary complication appearing in newborns with a meconium-stained amniotic fluid. Aspirated meconium can interfere with normal breathing by several mechanisms including airway obstruction, chemical irritation, infection and surfactant inactivation and induces more or less severe signs of respiratory distress at birth.

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (4)

MAS · meconium aspiration · meconium aspiration syndrome · neonatal aspiration of meconium

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

5/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    6,260 matched papers (3,276 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    20 HPO annotations (e.g. Respiratory distress; Transient pulmonary infiltrates; Caesarean section) Source

  4. Animal modelPresent

    1 genotype model (Mus musculus) Source

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    2 FDA · 1 EMA designations (2 FDA orphan-indication approvals) — e.g. Lucinactant Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    18 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

20

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0006851

  • Respiratory distress
  • Transient pulmonary infiltrates
  • Caesarean section
  • Fetal distress
  • Postterm pregnancy

Showing 5 of 20 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

1

Model associations linked to this Mondo ID

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

3

Designations · 2 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA Lucinactantof meconium aspiration · 1996-07-30 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • FDA BeractantMeconium Aspiration Syndrome Persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn Pneumonia Sepsis Respiratory Failure · 1993-12-20 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • EMA sinapultide;Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine;palmitoyloleoyl phosphatidylglycerol;palmitic acidTreatment of meconium aspiration syndrome · 19/09/2001 · WithdrawnEMA designation

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

3

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0006851

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

5 associated chemicals. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Dexamethasone · therapeutic
  • Nitric Oxide · therapeutic
  • Sildenafil Citrate · therapeutic
  • tezosentan · therapeutic
  • Cocaine · marker/mechanism

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0006851

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

6,260

6,260 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

6,260 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

3,276 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 92.7th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 6,260 · MeSH hits: 141

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,108

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Lowenstein L7 papers · 2026

    Raya Strauss Wing of Obstetrics and Gynecology Galilee Medical Center, Nahariya, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Chen Q6 papers · 2026

    Department of Cardiac Surgery, Fujian Children's Hospital (Fujian Branch of Shanghai Children's Medical Center), College of Clinical Medicine for Obstetrics & Gynecology and Pediatrics, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China. chenqiang2228@163.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Abu Shqara R4 papers · 2026

    Raya Strauss Wing of Obstetrics and Gynecology Galilee Medical Center, Nahariya, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Frank Wolf M4 papers · 2026

    Raya Strauss Wing of Obstetrics and Gynecology Galilee Medical Center, Nahariya, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Lakshminrusimha S4 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, UC Davis Children's Hospital, Sacramento, CA, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Xiong W4 papers · 2026

    Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Shangrao Children's Hospital, Shangrao, Jiangxi Province, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Zhang J4 papers · 2025

    Department of Neonatology, Northwest Women's and Children's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Cao L3 papers · 2026

    Jingdezhen First People's Hospital, Department of Pediatrics, Jingdezhen, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Grisaru-Granovsky S3 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Affiliated with the Hebrew University School of Medicine, 12 Bayit Street, 91031, Jerusalem, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Peled T3 papers · 2026

    Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Affiliated with the Hebrew University School of Medicine, 12 Bayit Street, 91031, Jerusalem, Israel. tzuria10@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

18

interventional trials for this specific condition

18 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

18 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 94.5th percentile).

medium confidence · 94.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

18 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

2 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 14 · after dedupe 14 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 14 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (14)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Meconium aspiration syndrome — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Meconium aspiration syndrome" OR "meconium aspiration" OR "neonatal aspiration of meconium" OR "neonatal aspiration of the meconium"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Meconium Aspiration Syndrome

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Meconium aspiration syndrome" OR "meconium aspiration" OR "neonatal aspiration of meconium" OR "neonatal aspiration of the meconium"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 18 interventional · 2 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: MAS

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T01:35:33.780Z