Probiotics reduce the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants with very low birth weight

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1006-5725.2015.23.039

Abstract：Objective To investigate the efficacy of probiotics in prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in preterm infants with very low birth weight (VLBW). Methods A retrospective cohort study was car-ried out from 2012 to 2013 on 648 preterm neonates with VLBW (birth weight < 1 500 g) in our hospital. The neonates received a daily feeding supplementation with aprobiotic mixture were defined asthe exposed group , and the neonatesnot received feed supplements were defined as the control group. The relationship between the probi-otics and NEC prevention was evaluated by comparing the incidence of NEC in the two groups. Continuous vari-ables werecompared by using the Student′st test; chi-square analysis was used to evaluethe significant differences in categorical variables between two groups. Significance was defined as P < 0.05, thedatawas managedandana-lyzedbyusing the SPSS software. Results Six hundred and fifty-eight infants were eligible for inclusion in this analysis, 310 in the exposed group and 348 in the control group.Nosignificant differences inneonatal general in-formation, feeding and infection data between the groups were observed. Theincidence of NEC was 14.2% in the exposed group treated with probiotics and 21.3% in the control group with no probiotics treatment , with signifi-cant difference (P = 0.020). Theincidence of NEC reducing from 14.2% to 21.3% yielded a relative risk re-duction of 23% (RR: 0.67, 95%CI: 0.48 ~ 0.94). A higher proportion of neonates developed into severe NEC in the control group (≥stage 2) (27 of 348, 7.76%) compared with the probiotics group (12 of 310, 3.87%). The difference of theproportion neonates requiring surgery in the both two groups was not significant. Conclusion Prophylact use of probiotics was a protective factor and could reduce the incidenceof NEC in our premature neonatalpopulation with VLBW.