Red blood cell transfusion, feeding and necrotizing ... - Semantic Scholar

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Jan 20, 2011 - The association between NEC and red blood cell (RBC) .... Abbreviations: NEC, necrotizing enterocolitis; PRBCs, packed red blood cells.
Journal of Perinatology (2011) 31, 183–187 r 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. 0743-8346/11 www.nature.com/jp

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Red blood cell transfusion, feeding and necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants M El-Dib1, S Narang1, E Lee2, AN Massaro1 and H Aly1 1

Departments of Pediatrics and Neonatology, The George Washington University, Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA and 2Department of Pathology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

Objective: Preliminary studies suggested an association between red blood cell (RBC) transfusion and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature neonates. An advantageous effect of withholding feeds during transfusion has never been studied. We aimed, first, to determine whether preterm infants who developed NEC were more likely to be transfused in the 48 to 72 h before the diagnosis of NEC; second, to test if a strict policy of withholding feeds during transfusion would decrease the incidence of transfusion-associated NEC.

Study Design: The study was conducted in two phases. Phase 1: a retrospective case–control study of premature low-birth weight (

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