Application of magnetic resonance quantitative score on the assessment of brain maturity in preterm infants with white matter injury / 中国新生儿科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To study the relationship between white matter injury (WMI) and brain maturity in preterm infants at full-term corrected gestational age (cGA).Methods:A retrospective study was performed in preterm infants [GA≤32 weeks or birth weight (BW) ≤1 500 g] admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from January 2017 to August 2018 and the Northwest Women and Children's Hospital from January 2017 to June 2017. The infants received conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at cGA 37~42 weeks. The infants were assigned into the WMI group and the control group according to the WMI scoring system, including the total maturation scores (TMS) and four sub-item scores.Results:A total of 118 premature infants were enrolled in this study (17 cases in the WMI group and 101 cases in the control group). The GA was (30.3±1.7) weeks, and BW was (1 356±268) g. The proportion of delayed TMS in the WMI group was significantly higher than the control group [58.8%(10/17) vs. 31.7%(32/101), P<0.05]. The TMS of the WMI group were significantly lower than the control group [(10.7±1.8) vs. (11.8±1.5), P<0.05]. The sub-item scores of TMS showed that the myelination [(2.8±0.6) vs. (3.1±0.4), P<0.05] and glial cell migration bands of the WMI group [(1.6±0.4) vs. (2.1±0.6), P=0.004] were significantly lower than the control group and no significant differences existed in cortical folding and involution of germinal matrix tissue scores between the two groups. Conclusions:The brain maturity of preterm infants with WMI is substantially delayed than those without WMI, including delayed myelination and delayed disappearance of glial cell migration bands.