1 Special Care Nursery, Regional Center for Mothers & Babies, Methodist Hospital, 1701 N Senate Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46202
To the Editor.
The recent report by Perlman et al1 suggesting that chloride deficiency may be a significant contributing factor in the poor outcome of infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia seems invalid because of the composition of the study and control groups. Although they found no difference between the two groups relative to the requirements for oxygen and mechanical ventilation, it would seem plausible that the study group, who all died in the neonatal intensive care unit, had more severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia than the control group, who were all able to be discharged home.