Pre-term Infants in Major Abdominal Surgery and Postoperative Outcome

Abstract

\n Background: A monocentric observational study was undertaken in pediatric surgical patients in neurosurgery, abdominal and orthopedic surgery to determine predictors of postoperative outcome. In this cohort of 594 patients with a mean age of 90.86±71.80 months there were 25 pre-terms aged less than 37 weeks. A description of postoperative outcome was undertaken in these pre-term infants. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics in pre-term patients in this initial cohort. Methods: Secondary analysis of pre-term patients included in the initial retrospective observational study. The Ethics Committee approved the study. Results: 25 pre-terms aged <37 weeks were included with a mean weight of 2.43±0.75 kg in major neonatal abdominal surgery. 9 patient presented postoperative complications among which 1 had an intra-operative cardiac arrest, 4 had postoperative respiratory failure, 2 had pulmonary sepsis, 1 had surgical wound sepsis, 1 had septicemia and 1 had multi-organ sepsis. Conclusion: In this cohort of 25 critically ill pre-terms in major neonatal abdominal surgery, the most common postoperative complications concerned the respiratory system which included respiratory failure and pulmonary sepsis. There was no in-hospital mortality.