Early dexamethasone therapy in preterm infants: a follow-up study.

To study the outcome at 2-year corrected age of infants who participated in a double-blind controlled trial of early (<12 hours) dexamethasone therapy for the prevention of chronic lung disease (CLD). A total of 133 children (70 in the control group, 63 in the dexamethasone-treated group) who survived the initial study period and lived to 2 years of age were studied. All infants had birth weights of 500 to 1999 g and had severe respiratory distress syndrome requiring mechanical ventilation within 6 hours after birth. For infants in the treatment group, dexamethasone was started at a mean age of 8.1 hours and given 0.25 mg/kg every 12 hours for 1 week and then tapered off gradually over a 3-week period. The following variables were evaluated: interim medical history, socioeconomic background, physical growth, neurologic examinations, mental and psychomotor development index score (MDI and PDI), pulmonary function, electroencephalogram, and auditory and visual evoked potential. Infants in the control group tended to have a higher incidence of upper respiratory infection and rehospitalization than did the dexamethasone-treated group because of respiratory problems. Although there was no difference between the groups in somatic growth in girls, the dexamethasone-treated boys had significantly lower body weight and shorter height than the control boys (10.7 +/- 3.0 vs 11.9 +/- 2.0 kg; 84.9 +/- 5.7 vs 87.5 +/- 4.8 cm). The dexamethasone-treated group had a significantly higher incidence of neuromotor dysfunction (25/63 vs 12/70) than did the control group. The dexamethasone-treated infants also had a lower PDI score (79 +/- 26) than did the control group (87 +/- 23), but the difference was not statistically significant. Both groups were comparable in MDI, incidence of vision impairment, and auditory and visual evoked potential. Significant handicap, defined as severe neurologic defect and/or intellectual defect (MDI and/or PDI