Postoperative Complications after Major Abdominal Surgery in Preterm Infants: A Single Institute Record

Backgrounds: Post-operative complications in pediatric surgery are important issues, especially that after major abdominal surgery for preterm infants: complications sometimes lead to mortality/morbidity even though the surgical procedures were successful. We here attempted to demonstrate and record post-operative complications in preterm infants after major abdominal surgery. This is a secondary analysis of our cohort (n = 594) previously reported regarding pediatric postoperative complications (not confined to preterm infants). Methods: Of 594 patients, 25 preterm (born Results: The mean weight was 2.43 ± 0.75 kg. Of 25, nine suffered postoperative complications: postoperative respiratory failure (n = 4), pulmonary sepsis (n = 2), and the followings were observed in one patient: intra-operative cardiac arrest, wound sepsis, septicemia, and multi-organ sepsis. There was no in-hospital mortality. Conclusion: In preterm infants undergoing major abdominal surgery, the most common postoperative complication was respiratory; respiratory failure and pulmonary sepsis. This data is roughly the same as that observed in the previous studies, which made us reconfirm the importance of the vigilance on respiratory complications in this population.