Original Article Clinical Antecedents of Neurologic and Audiologic Abnormalities in Survivors of Neonatal Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is an effective rescue treatment for severe cardiorespiratory failure in term or near-term neonates, although cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and sensorineural hearing loss are observed in 10 to 20 % of survivors. The objective of the present study was to identify potential risk factors that may explain the neurologic and audi-ologic sequelae noted in 19 % of 181 survivors of neonatal extracorporeal membrane oxygenation from our hospital. Our results suggest the following findings in survivors of severe cardiorespiratory failure treated with neonatal extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: (1) hypotension or the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation before extracorporeal membrane oxygenation significantly increases the risk of spastic cerebral palsy, (2) profound hypocarbia before extracorporeal mem-brane oxygenation is associated with a significantly increased risk of hearing loss, (3) mental retardation in the absence of spastic cerebral palsy is unexplained except when due to abnormal fetal brain development, and (4) hypoxemia in the absence of hypotension does not increase the risk of neurologic or audiologic sequelae. (J Child Neurol 1997;12:415-422). Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation uses prolonged car-diopulmonary bypass to reduce mortality in selected neonates with severe cardiorespiratory failure refractory to conven-tional ventilatory therapy. 1,2 Extracorporeal membrane oxy