Abstract:

Indroduction and Objective: Mortality of premature infants has been decreased with recent developments in the neonatal intensive care units (NICU). This decrease is prominent especially in the extremely low birthweight (ELBW) preeterm infants group. Intensive care unit short-term outcomes, features of the intensive care follow-up, the treatment, incidence and severity of comorbidity differ in this group than the others. Results of the data for this patient group is important to set the patient treatment and follow-up protocols. We aimed to present the data of ELBW preeterm infants who are discharged from our NICU which is the largest one in Turkey. Material and Methods: In this retrospective study, ELBW preeterm infants who were followed-up at our Neonatology outpatient clinic of our hospital between January-2009 and July 2010 areincluded. Perinatal demographic features, intensive care follow-up features, short-term outcomes and comorbidities are recorded.Results: A hundred and fifty-four ELBW preeterm infants were included to the study. Among 113 survived ELBW preeterm infants in the NICU average gestational week, average birth weight and average maternal age were 26.9±1.8 weeks, 853±60 g and 27.7±5.6 years, respectively. During the hospitalization, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was observed in 53.9%, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in 9.7%, pneumothorax in 5.5%, pulmonary hemorrhage in 9.8%, levels of intracranial hemorrhage (stage 3 and 4) 21. 4% and hydrocephalia requiring shunt operation was in 3.5% of the neonates. Retinopathy of premature (ROP) requiring treatment was observed in 23%. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BDP) was found to be 30.3% of the patients whereas only eight patients (8%) required home-oxygen treatment.Conclusion: This first wide series data presented in our country in ELBW premature neonates indicates that special treatment and follow-up policies should be set for the related comorbidities in the era of low mortality

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