Introduction:

Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is the most frequent cardiocirculatory defect in preterm infants; it is inversely related to gestational age and birth weight; it is also associated with various complications.

Objective:

To determine the intrahospital morbidities in very low birth weight infants (VLBWI) with and without PDA.

Materials and Methods:

This was a retrospective study of cases and controls nested in a cohort of VLBWI admitted in the NICU, from January 2013 to December 2015. We excluded newborns with congenital malformations, who died in the delivery room, who died on the first day of life because of severe perinatal asphyxia or who were transferred to other institutions. The baseline characteristics were: weight, gestational age, sex, prenatal, maternal hypertension, multiple pregnancy, growth restriction, prenatal corticosteroids, prolonged rupture of membranes, type of delivery, and Apgar score. The morbidities analyzed were respiratory distress (RDS), pulmonary hemorrhage, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), sepsis, respiratory support, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), alveolar rupture, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and death. The data were recorded in SSPS 17 and Epi info 7.2, the X² or Fischer test, Student t test and the Mann Whitney test were applied. Significance was defined as p <0.05 with a 95% confidence interval.

Results:

We included 131 newborns, 62 with PDA and 69 without PDA, whose baseline characteristics were similar, except for the use of prenatal corticosteroids in the group without PDA (p 0.035) RR 0.7 (0.5-0.9). Newborns with PDA had more RDS (p 0.0003) RR 1.5 (1.1-1.9), pulmonary hemorrhage (p 0.024) RR 8.9 (1,1-69), mechanical ventilation (p 0, 0001) RR 1.7 (1.3-2.2), oxygen at 28 days (p 0.001) RR 2.2 (1.3-3.8), longer duration of TPN (p 0.01), transfusions (p 0.01) RR 1.7 (1.3-2.2), IVH (p 0.003) RR 2.1 (1.2-3.6), BPD (p 0.0001) RR 2.6 1.5-4.5), more hospitalization days (p 0.008) and a risk of death (p 0.001) RR 3.5 (1.5-8.2). No association with was observed with NEC (p 0.195), ROP (p 0.739), clinical sepsis (p 0.123) or late sepsis (p0.12).

Conclusion:

VLBWI with PDA had a higher risk of death and severe morbidity compared to those who did not have PDA.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )