title: Polycythemia in the newborn: do asymptomatic babies need exchange transfusion?
abstract: A total of 2288 infants were screened for hematocrit over a period of 15 months. Polycythemia was diagnosed in 27 cases (1.2%). Preterm and term babies had more or less equal risk to develop polycythemia (1.5% and 1.1% respectively) while postterm infants had at least three times increased risk (3.4%) when compared to their term counterparts. Large-for-dates (LFDs) and small-for-dates (SFDs) infants had increased risk of manifesting polycythemia which was nearly four times (2.2%) and twenty-five times (13.2%) respectively, as compared to appropriate-for-dates (AFDs) babies (0.5%). About one-third of polycythemic infants had one or more symptoms. The most common symptoms observed was jitteriness (25.9%) followed by respiratory distress (14.8%) and lethargy (11.1%). The mean (+/- SD) hematocrit of symptomatic newborns (76.0 +/- 4.04) was found to be significantly higher (p less than 0.001) as compared to asymptomatic babies (70.84 +/- 2.73). Partial exchange transfusion with plasma was performed in all the symptomatic cases within 8 hours of onset of symptoms. No such intervention was performed in asymptomatic cases. On neurodevelopment follow-up, the development indices (MDI and PDI) of both asymptomatic and symptomatic cases were found to be comparable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Singhal
authors.forename: V K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Deorari
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Sundaram
mesh_terms: D006128:Growth; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D010951:Plasma Exchange; D011086:Polycythemia / Q000097:blood / Q000628:therapy*