Long-term impact of bronchopulmonary dysplasia on pulmonary function

BACKGROUND: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and the long-term respiratory consequences of prematurity are unfamiliar to adult respirologists and remain under-recognized entities to adult caregivers. In Canada, the incidence of preterm births and its main chronic respiratory complication, BPD, have increased over the past 25 years. OBJECTIVE: To describe the posthospitalization morbidity, medication use, health care use and pulmonary function tests of a large cohort of individuals with preterm birth complicated by BPD. METHODS: A retrospective review of the hospital records of 322 preterm infants with BPD was conducted. Outcome variables were compared across levels of disease severity. Differences between groups were tested with one-way ANOVA for continuous variables and the Mantel-Haenszel chi(2) test for ordinal variables. RESULTS: Outcomes after the initial hospitalization that were associated with the initial severity of BPD were as follows: hospital readmissions in the first two years of life, the presence of developmental delay, forced expiratory volume in 1 s and forced vital capacity on pulmonary function tests in patients between eight and 15 years of age. CONCLUSION: Initial BPD severity was an important predictor of pulmonary function abnormality and health care use during childhood.