1 University of California, San Diego, Medical Center, 225 Dickinson St, San Diego, CA 92103-9981
To the Editor.
The central finding of Avery et al (Pediatrics 1987;70:26-30) that chronic disease was substantially less frequent in one neonatal intensive care unit than in others studied has sweeping implications for the practice of neonatology. If a constellation of neonatal ventilatory care practices leads to a substantial reduction of this morbidity, one would anticipate an ordinal increase in chronic lung disease as deviations from these care practices occur. However, in view of several problems with the statistical methods used and in the interpretation of results, their data do not support this finding.