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Systemic hypertension in preterm infants and neurodevelopmental outcomes

Journal of Perinatology volume 43, pages 943–945 (2023)Cite this article

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Neonatal hypertension (nHT), defined as a systolic blood pressure (SBP) > 95th percentile [1], varies from 0.2 to 3% during the neonatal period [2]. Premature newborns have been found to have persistent higher systemic blood pressure during their hospitalization and long-term [3]. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a recognized risk factor for nHT [4, 5], and is associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes [4, 6]. The objective was to evaluate the association between nHT and neurodevelopmental outcomes in a cohort of extremely preterm infants. We hypothesized that preterm infants with a BPD diagnosis and nHT would have worst neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months of corrected gestational age (GA).

We conducted a retrospective study of infants born <29 weeks and admitted between January 2010 and December 2012. We excluded those with major congenital/genetic anomalies, twin-twin transfusion syndrome, transferred to another institution or no neurodevelopmental available data. Patients with nHT were compared to those without, regarding their prenatal and neonatal characteristics, neonatal outcomes, and neurodevelopmental assessment at 18 months corrected GA. We defined nHT according to the measurements of blood pressure at the moment of the diagnosis by the care providers (from the medical chart), 36 weeks corrected GA, discharge and 18 months follow-up. Blood pressure measurements were obtained by the nurse (in hospital or at follow-up clinic) according to our local guidelines (appropriate cuff size for age and size, on one arm or leg, during a calm moment). nHT was defined as a measurement of SBP > 95th percentile [1] on 3 consecutive days [7] during neonatal stay or 3 consecutive measurements 2 minutes apart at 18 months visit. Data were collected from medical records and our local follow-up database. It included: neonatal characteristics, short-term outcomes (such as necrotizing enterocolitis, intraventricular hemorrhage [IVH], and sepsis) and long-term outcomes (Bailey-III scores and growth parameters) at 18 months (Table 1). Ethics approval was obtained. Descriptive statistics were performed, and the level of significance was set at 0.05.

Table 1 Comparisons between newborns with neonatal hypertension (nHT group) and patients without hypertension (no-nHT group).
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Fig. 1

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Gabriel Altit

  2. Department of Pediatrics, CHU Ste-Justine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Florence Cayouette

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, CHU Sainte-Justine, Université de Montréal, 3175 chemin de la Côte Ste-Catherine, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Véronique Dorval & Anie Lapointe

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  1. Gabriel Altit
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  2. Florence Cayouette
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  3. Véronique Dorval
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  4. Anie Lapointe
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Contributions

FC and VD conceptualized and designed the study. FC collected data and drafted the initial manuscript. AL and VD provided administrative and material support. GA and AL performed statistical analysis, interpretation of data, critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content, and supervised the entirety of the study. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

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Correspondence to Anie Lapointe.

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Altit, G., Cayouette, F., Dorval, V. et al. Systemic hypertension in preterm infants and neurodevelopmental outcomes. J Perinatol 43, 943–945 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-022-01577-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-022-01577-1

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