Evaluation of Cases with Esophageal Atresia Followed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: 10-Year Single Center Experience

Abstract

Objective: Esophageal atresia which is the most common congenital anomaly of the esophagus, occurs due to the incompleteness of physiological development as normally during the embryonic period. The mortality rate increases with prematuriy, low birth weight and accompanying anomalies. In this study, we aimed to evaluate our 10-year experience of esophageal atresia cases and mortality-related factors in this patients. Methods: We retrospectively eveluated our cases with esophageal atresia, which we followed up between January 2011 and December 2020. We determined the factors associated with mortality by analyzing the demographic characteristics and clinical findings of the patients. Results: We found that 9 (39.1%) of our 23 cases with esophageal atresia were died. Median gestational week and median birth weight of patients in exitus group were found to be statistically lower compared to patients in non-exitus group [33 week (28-38) vs. 37 week (29-40) respectively (p=0.003)] [1290 gram (875-2600) vs. 2535 gram (1150-2900) respectively (p=0.005)]. We grouped the patients according to the Okamoto modification of the Spitz classification and found survival rates as; 88.9% in group 1, 50% in group 2, 33.3% in group 3 and 66.7% in group 4. Conclusion: Low birth weight and major cardiac anomaly are associated with mortality in cases with esophageal atresia. Physicians should know the factors associated with mortality well and make risk classification to predict survival it will be useful in patient management.

Keywords

• esophageal atresia
• newborn
• esophagus
• classification