Abstract 1410 Poster Session III, Monday, 5/3 (poster 33)

BACKGROUND: Improved NICU care has resulted in increased survival of ELBW infants ≤25 weeks gestation. We report the outcomes of a large Canadian cohort.

METHOD: We examined outcomes data of all (n=782) deliveries ≤25 weeks gestation at 17 Canadian NICUs which were part of the Canadian NICU Network from Jan 1996 to Oct 1997. All were tertiary referral perinatal or neonatal centers. 3 babies were excluded because of incomplete data.

RESULTS: Outcomes results by gestation are shown in Table. Survival increases with increasing gestational age, reaching 77% at 25 weeks. Overall survival for children ≤25 weeks gestation is 66.5%. The prevalence of IVH (grade ≥3) and NEC plateaus at 23-25 weeks gestation. BPD increase with increasing gestational age and may reflect increased survival at higher gestational age groups. The mean corrected gestational age (CGA) at discharge is 36.5 weeks for premature infants ≤25 weeks gestation.

Table 1 No caption available
Full size table

CONCLUSION: Outcomes data of infants ≤25 weeks gestation are important to help guide treatment decisions and efforts to improve quality of care and patient outcomes.

Funded by the Medical Research Council of Canada