Outcome and costs of care for the very immature infant

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The survival of infants with a gestational age of 27 weeks or less has only recently become commonplace, and little detailed information is available about their longterm outcome. Many methodological defferences make the follow-up studies available difficult to compare. Survival below 25 weeks is still exceptional, but from 25 weeks onwards can exceed 52%. The use of antenatal steroids and referral to a reginal centre improves the chances of survival. Late deaths after discharge are unfortunately common. Neurodevelopmental assessment of survivors shows a high rate of major impairment ranging from 20–52%. Multiple impairments are commoner in those of lowest gestational age. Neonatal cranial ultrasonography shows cerebral lesions to be present in 40% of these infants at discharge from hospital and these appearances correlate with neurodevelopmental outcome. At school age, minor motor and attentional deficits persist in many of those without major impairments. The costs of providing care to this group are very high, but methods for cost-benefit evaluation remain inadequate at present.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: