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Long-term Follow-up of Lung Function in Adulthood of Infants Born at Very Low Birth Weight :

January 3, 2020

The use of population-based birth cohorts of preterm infants has taught us an enormous amount about the consequences of prematurity.

The use of population-based birth cohorts of preterm infants has taught us an enormous amount about the consequences of prematurity. We now have excellent cohorts that track into adulthood. One such cohort, studied by Darlow et al and being early released this month (10.1542/peds.2019-2359) is a group of 226 very low birth weight infants (VLBW) and 100 term controls born in 1986 followed for their lung function over the years. These infants were categorized by birthweight as noted above and by whether or not they had a history of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in infancy. Then as adults, at ages 26-30 years of age, the former low-birth weight and term infants were given a full battery of pulmonary function tests. The results indicated that 35% of the VLBW infants compared to the 14% of the controls had an obstructive pulmonary pattern with spirometry in adulthood even after controlling for gender, and smoking. Within the group of former VLBW adults, those who had BPD had worse pulmonary function than those born VLBW without BPD, even after controlling for confounders.

There is a lot of long-term information in this study, with implications for the monitoring that we provide. Link to it and learn more so your patients who were once VLBW preterm infants can benefit as a result.

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