Is There a Viability Centile for Extremely Growth-Retarded Infants?
Esther Rieger-Fackeldey, MD, PhD Department of Women s and Children s Health, Section for Pediatrics, and Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; Neonatology, Perinatal Center, Klinikum Grosshadern, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany Growth-restricted preterm infants have increased mortality and morbidity.1 5 Among them, the very immature infants with gestational ages <27 completed weeks gestation run a high risk for adverse outcomes.6 Infants with birth weights <500 g are often considered to be nonviable, and their outcome varies to a great extent.7 11 Although the chances of survival of extremely low birth weight infants have improved in recent years,12 there are not enough data available to answer the question "how small is too small?" A study by Kamoji et al,13 published in this issue of Pediatrics, has addressed this topic by testing the hypothesis that there is a viability weight centile over all gestational-age groups in preterm infants. The f
