Polycythemia in the newborn: do asymptomatic babies need exchange transfusion?
No Thumbnail Available
Date
1990-01-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
A total of 2288 infants were screened for hematocrit over a period of 15 months. Polycythemia was diagnosed in 27 cases (1.2%). Preterm and term babies had more or less equal risk to develop polycythemia (1.5% and 1.1% respectively) while postterm infants had at least three times increased risk (3.4%) when compared to their term counterparts. Large-for-dates (LFDs) and small-for-dates (SFDs) infants had increased risk of manifesting polycythemia which was nearly four times (2.2%) and twenty-five times (13.2%) respectively, as compared to appropriate-for-dates (AFDs) babies (0.5%). About one-third of polycythemic infants had one or more symptoms. The most common symptoms observed was jitteriness (25.9%) followed by respiratory distress (14.8%) and lethargy (11.1%). The mean (+/- SD) hematocrit of symptomatic newborns (76.0 +/- 4.04) was found to be significantly higher (p less than 0.001) as compared to asymptomatic babies (70.84 +/- 2.73). Partial exchange transfusion with plasma was performed in all the symptomatic cases within 8 hours of onset of symptoms. No such intervention was performed in asymptomatic cases. On neurodevelopment follow-up, the development indices (MDI and PDI) of both asymptomatic and symptomatic cases were found to be comparable.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Singh M, Singhal PK, Paul VK, Deorari AK, Sundaram KR. Polycythemia in the newborn: do asymptomatic babies need exchange transfusion? Indian Pediatrics. 1990 Jan; 27(1): 61-5