Clinical approach to the analysis of causes of death in the first two years of life of very-low-birthweight infants in a multicentre setting

Mortality in the first 2 years of 634 very‐low‐birthweight infants admitted to eight neonatal intensive care units in Italy, and the factors associated with the net probability of death from each cause, were studied by means of the Cox proportional hazard model. A clinical classification of the causes of death was used. Overall mortality was 33.7% (intercentre range 12.6–52.9%). The highest cause‐specific mortality rates were observed for respiratory problems, intra‐ventricular haemorrhage (IVH) and infections (14.5%, 6.3% and 5.7% respectively). The leading causes of death were respiratory problems and IVH in the first week of life, infections from the second week up to the end of the first month, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) afterwards. Birthweight