Effects of anemia and red blood cell transfusion in preterm infants on the development of bronchopulmonary dysplasia: a propensity score analysis

Abstract

To determine association of severe anemia and red blood cell (RBC) transfusions with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm infants with gestational age <32 weeks, a retrospective analysis was conducted on 364 newborns from August 1,2018, until August 31,2020. 135 patients were diagnosed with BPD and the other 229 neonates were included in the non-BPD group. One-to-one propensity score matching (83:83) was used to match the baseline characteristics and confounding factors of patients so as to better evaluate effects of anemia and RBC transfusion. The results showed that the rate of severe anemia was significantly different between the BPD group and non-BPD group [14/83(16.87) vs 4/83(4.82), p = 0.013]. The number and volume of transfusion were significantly lower in the non-BPD group than in the BPD group [number:1(0,2) vs 2(0,4), p = 0.001;volume:30(0,40) vs 40(20,80), p = 0.004]. We find that Among anemic neonates,only severe anemia may increase the risk of developing BPD. Larger volume and higher number of RBC transfusions are related to BPD and its severity. Risk of BPD was neither related to the onset of anemia nor the timing of first transfusion. Medical methods should be adopted to prevent severe anemia and reduce RBC transfusions.

Registration Name of registry: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, Registry number: ChiCTR 2100042768. Registration date: 28 January, 2021. URL of the trial in the registry database:http://www.chictr.org.cn/listbycreater.aspx.

KEYWORDS:

• Bronchopulmonary dysplasia
• anemia
• red blood cell transfusion
• preterm infants
• propensity score analysis

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Correction

Acknowledgements

The authors thank statisticians Xiaohua Liang and Xian Tang for assistance in reviewing statistics. Conceptualization, S. S. M., D. L. Z., and Y. S.; methodology, S. S. M., L. C., and Y. S.; data curation, S. S. M. and D. L. Z.; writing original draft preparation, S. S. M. and D. L. Z.; writing review and editing, Y. S. and L. C.; supervision, Y. S. and L. C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board, Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University of China.

Data availability statement

Yuan Shi is the guarantor of this work and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. The data that support the findings of this study are available in Mendeley Data repository [https://data.mendeley.com/] at https://doi.org/10.17632/7bvnhn5k22.1.

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/26895293.2021.1979803)

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Clinical Research Center of China and Clinical Medical Study Program of Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University [grant number NCRC-2019-GP-13].