Unbound bilirubin and risk of severe neurodevelopmental impairment in extremely low birthweight newborns.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Unbound bilirubin (UB) was measured on day 5 ± 1 in 1101 ELBW newborns in the Aggressive vs Conservative Phototherapy randomized controlled trial. We accessed this dataset to quantify the UB-mediated risk of severe neurodevelopmental impairment (sNDI) in extremely low birthweight (ELBW) newborns.

Methods

UB levels were standardized within laboratories as z-score percentiles. A dichotomous UB exposure variable was based on sharply increased risk of sNDI at the 85th percentile (UBz>85th). Targeted maximum likelihood estimation with ensemble machine learning (TMLE + ML) and logistic regression (LR) were used to estimate sNDI risk attributable to UBz>85th.

Results

UB - total bilirubin correlation was poor: R² 0.24, 95% CI: 0.19, 0.30. The UB level co

SUBMITTER: Arnold CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12284093 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature