Long Term Prognosis of Infants With Severe Idiopathic Respiratory Distress Syndrome

75 out of 77 children surviving IRDS with the aid of intermittent positive pressure ventilation have been followed up by age 2.6-7.6 years together with 68 matched controls. The morbidity of lower respiratory tract illnesses was significantly higher in IRDS survivors than in controls affecting a total of 48%, half whom were admitted to hospital on at least on occasion. Only 3 IRDS survivors had pneumonias beyound their third year, however. One child suffered from a moderate stridor due to a partial laryngeal stenosis and one from some dyspnoea at function caused by broncho-pulmonary dysplasia. Thoracic X-ray changes were found significantly more often and more marked in IRDS survivors but on the whole the changes were discrete. Neither the occurrence of pneumonia nor X-ray changes in the IRDS survivors were statistically relatable to a number of neonatal or therapeutical characteristics. Measurements of heart volume, respiratory frequency, oxygen saturation and acid-base values did not differ between the groups. Ventilated IRDS survivors, even with some degree of radiographic demonstrable residua, thus seem to have a good long-term prognosis with regard to lung function, irrespective of a preliminary high morbidity of lower respiratory tract illnesses.