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Restrictions for ECMO in neonates include birth weight less than 2 kg (BW < 2 kg) and/or gestational age less than 34 weeks (GA < 34 weeks). We sought to describe their relationship on mortality.

Neonates with a primary diagnosis code of CDH were identified in the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry, and logistic regression models were used to examine the effect of BW < 2 kg and GA < 34 weeks on mortality.

We identified 7564 neonates with CDH. The overall mortality was 50%. There was a significantly higher risk of death with unadjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.39 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.53–3.74; P < 0.01) for BW < 2 kg neonates. The adjusted OR of death for BW < 2 kg neonates remained significantly high with over two-fold increase in the odds of mortality when adjusted for potential confounding variables (OR 2.11, 95% CI: 1.30–3.43; P < 0.01 …