TY - JOUR T1 - Neurodevelopmental outcome of patients with congenital gastrointestinal malformations: a systematic review and meta-analysis JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition JO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed SP - 635 LP - 642 DO - 10.1136/archdischild-2021-322158 VL - 106 IS - 6 AU - Daniëlle Roorda AU - Marsh Königs AU - Laurens Eeftinck Schattenkerk AU - Lideke van der Steeg AU - Ernest van Heurn AU - Jaap Oosterlaan Y1 - 2021/11/01 UR - http://fn.bmj.com/content/106/6/635.abstract N2 - Aim Children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations may be at risk of neurodevelopmental impairment due to challenges to the developing brain, including perioperative haemodynamic changes, exposure to anaesthetics and postoperative inflammatory influences. This study aggregates existing evidence on neurodevelopmental outcome in these patients using meta-analysis.Method PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched for peer-reviewed articles published until October 2019. Out of the 5316 unique articles that were identified, 47 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included. Standardised mean differences (Cohen’s d) between cognitive, motor and language outcome of patients with congenital gastrointestinal malformations and normative data (39 studies) or the studies’ control group (8 studies) were aggregated across studies using random-effects meta-analysis. The value of (clinical) moderators was studied using meta-regression and diagnostic subgroups were compared.Results The 47 included studies encompassed 62 cohorts, representing 2312 patients. Children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations had small-sized cognitive impairment (d=−0.435, p<0.001; 95% CI −0.567 to −0.302), medium-sized motor impairment (d=−0.610, p<0.001; 95% CI −0.769 to −0.451) and medium-sized language impairment (d=−0.670, p<0.001; 95% CI −0.914 to −0.425). Patients with short bowel syndrome had worse motor outcome. Neurodevelopmental outcome was related to the number of surgeries and length of total hospital stay, while no relations were observed with gestational age, birth weight, age and sex.Interpretation This study shows that children with congenital gastrointestinal malformations exhibit impairments in neurodevelopmental outcome, highlighting the need for routine screening of neurodevelopment during follow-up.Data are available upon reasonable request. ER -