Approximately 10 % of all live births in the United States are born preterm (<37 weeks gestation). Preterm survivors are at increased risk for respiratory diseases, most commonly bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD),1 particularly in very low birth weight infants. These children are also subject to other morbidities, including cardiovascular, neurological, and gastrointestinal.2 While these morbidities are best characterized in the first two years of life, emerging long-term evidence suggests that some of these complications persist in a subset of survivors, extending into childhood and adult life.3 Chronic respiratory disease of prematurity encompasses a variety of lung phenotypes, including alveolar, upper airway, large airways, small airways, and vascular, and each of these phenotypes may improve, resolve, or persist at different timepoints and rates.4 School age children with a history of BPD have been found to be at increased risk for small airway disease and asthma-like symptoms.5 Small airway dysfunction in children with BPD may in part be due to dysanaptic airway growth, occurring from a combination of neonatal lung injury and premature disruption of lung growth. Recent evidence also suggests that some children with BPD are at increased risk for early onset chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).6 Similar to adults with COPD, children with a history of BPD often have respiratory exacerbations triggered by respiratory tract infections. Frequent lower respiratory infections or pneumonia in these children, may contribute to lower%FEV1 in adult life.7 While the focus of this chapter is on these respiratory phenotypes for infants with BPD, we also discuss the long-term prognosis for cardiovascular, neurological, and gastrointestinal morbidities. The time-course of various manifestations of BPD is illustrated in Table 1.
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