Episodes of apnea, desaturation and bradycardia and the development of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants: a case–control study

Abstract

Objective: To investigate for any association between episodes of apnea, desaturation and bradycardia and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Methods: Case–control study in infants of gestational age < 30 weeks. For each NEC case we selected two controls. During the period from 2001 to 2007, data were extracted from the nurse’s notes of the patient’s medical records. A p < 0.05 was statistically significant. Results: A total of 38 out of 394 infants had NEC (9.6%). There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between the 2 groups, except for a lower proportion of infants who were receiving breast milk in the NEC group (p = 0.02). There was no difference in the overall number of apneas & bradycardias or severe episodes of desaturation & bradycardia between the 2 groups. Conclusion: No association between episodes of apnea, severe desaturations or bradycardia and development of NEC was observed in this preterm population.

Keywords::

• Mesenteric hypoperfusion
• intermittent hypoxia

Acknowledgement

We thank Xun Zhang, PhD from the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at McGill University for the assistance with the statistical analysis.

Declaration of Interest: Dr G. Sant’Anna was supported by research funds from the Research Institute of the Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.