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. 2015 Mar 20;12(4):295-300.
doi: 10.7150/ijms.11523. eCollection 2015.

The Effects of Antenatal Corticosteroids on Short- and Long-Term Outcomes in Small-for-Gestational-Age Infants

Hiroshi Ishikawa  1 , Ken Miyazaki  2 , Tomoaki Ikeda  3 , Nao Murabayashi  3 , Kazutoshi Hayashi  4 , Akihiko Kai  5 , Kaoru Ishikawa  6 , Yoshihiro Miyamoto  7 , Kunihiro Nishimura  7 , Yumi Kono  8 , Satoshi Kusuda  9 , Masanori Fujimura  10 ; Neonatal Research Network of Japan
Collaborators, Affiliations

The Effects of Antenatal Corticosteroids on Short- and Long-Term Outcomes in Small-for-Gestational-Age Infants

Hiroshi Ishikawa et al. Int J Med Sci. .

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the effect of antenatal corticosteroids (ANS) on short- and long-term outcomes in small-for-gestational age (SGA) infants.

Methods: A retrospective database analysis was performed. A total of 1,931 single infants (birth weight <1,500 g) born at a gestational age between 22 weeks and 33 weeks 6 days who were determined to be SGA registered in the Neonatal Research Network Database in Japan between 2003 and 2007 were evaluated for short-term outcome and long-term outcome.

Results: ANS was administered to a total of 719 infants (37%) in the short-term outcome evaluation group and 344 infants (36%) in the long-term outcome evaluation group. There were no significant differences between the ANS group and the no-ANS group for primary short-term outcome (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 0.73; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.45-1.20; P-value 0.22) or primary long-term outcome (adjusted OR 0.69; 95% CI 0.40-1.17; P-value 0.17).

Conclusions: Our results show that ANS does not affect short- or long-term outcome in SGA infants when the birth weight is less than 1500 g. This study strongly suggests that administration of ANS resulted in few benefits for preterm FGR fetuses.

Keywords: fetal growth restriction; glucocorticoids; infant; infant mortality; premature birth; small for gestational age.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: This study was partly supported by a grant from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study inclusion process for the short-term outcome evaluation group and the long-term outcome evaluation group. ANS, antenatal corticosteroids; GA, gestational age
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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