Pediatrics
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Hyperbilirubinemia in preterm infants and neurodevelopmental outcome at 2 years of age: results of a national collaborative survey.
As part of a prospective national survey of preterm and small for gestational age infants in the Netherlands, the relationship between maximal serum total bilirubin concentration in the neonatal period and neurodevelopmental outcome at the corrected age of 2 years was studied. Initially, 1,338 infants with a gestational age of less than 32 completed weeks and/or a birth weight of less than 1,500 g were enrolled in the study; 146 were subsequently excluded because of congenital malformations and 361 died during the study period. At the corrected age of 2 years, 831 children were available for follow-up. ⋯ This indicates that, on a multiplicative scale, the risk of a handicap increased by 30% for each 50-mumol/L (2.9 mg/dL) increase of maximal serum total bilirubin concentration (P = .02). Further analysis treated bilirubin as a categorized exposure. A striking systematic increase was found, suggesting a causal relationship between maximal serum total bilirubin concentration and neurodevelopmental outcome.