Survival Rate of Premature Infants Under 1.5 kg Reaches 90%... Up 6.6 Percentage Points from 10 Years Ago

National Institute of Health Reports Decline in Complications Such as Intraventricular Hemorrhage and Neonatal Seizures

The survival rate of premature infants born in Korea weighing less than 1.5 kg has risen to as high as 90% at the time of discharge.

On January 8, the National Institute of Health under the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency published the "Very Low Birth Weight Infant Registry 2024 Annual Report," which analyzed the characteristics of infants with a birth weight under 1.5 kg, as well as those born before 32 weeks of gestational age, and released these findings.

Since launching the Korean Neonatal Network (KNN) in 2013 in collaboration with the Korean Society of Neonatology, the National Institute of Health has continued a clinical research project on very low birth weight infants, with participation from neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in over 70 hospitals nationwide. Through this project, more than 2,000 premature infants are registered each year and followed up until age three to monitor survival rates, major complications, treatment outcomes, and growth and development status.

This year’s report includes the basic characteristics, comorbidities, and discharge and mortality outcomes of a total of 2,331 infants registered in 2024, as well as follow-up results at 1.5 years of age (corrected age 18-24 months) for infants born in 2022, and long-term follow-up at age three for those born in 2021. It also presents trends in discharge survival rates and key long-term follow-up indicators for very low birth weight infants over the past 10 years since the project began in 2014.

According to the results of this long-term observational study of high-risk newborns, the survival rate of very low birth weight infants has consistently improved over the past decade, and major complications and developmental outcomes have generally shown improvement.

The discharge survival rate for very low birth weight infants was 83.4% in 2014, 86.5% in 2019, and rose to 90.0% in 2024. The discharge survival rate for all registered infants, including those born before 32 weeks of gestation, was 91.6%, similar to the previous year.

The prevalence of major neurological complications among premature infants also decreased slightly compared to the previous year: intraventricular hemorrhage dropped by 1.9 percentage points to 30.8%, neonatal seizures decreased by 0.4 percentage points to 3.9%, and periventricular leukomalacia fell by 0.4 percentage points to 6.2%.

Analysis of long-term follow-up trends at ages 1.5 and 3 years showed a clear decline in the diagnosis rate of cerebral palsy. The diagnosis rate at 1.5 years of age was 6.2% for infants born in 2014, 4.5% for those born in 2019, and 3.1% for those born in 2022. The diagnosis rate at age three also dropped from 6.1% for the 2014 birth cohort to 3.5% for the 2021 cohort, nearly halving over the past decade.

Kim Wonho, Acting Director of the National Institute of Health, stated, "Through the very low birth weight infant registry project, we have confirmed that both the survival rates and outcome indicators for high-risk premature infants are improving simultaneously." He added, "We will continue to produce basic data on high-risk premature infants and accumulate scientific evidence to further improve their survival rates and healthy growth."