202 Post-Haemorrhagic Ventricular Dilatation and Adc Measurements in the White Matter in Preterm Born Infants at Term Equivalent Age

Abstract

Objective: Post-haemorrhagic ventricular dilatation (PHVD) might cause additional white matter (WM) injury due to increased pressure on surrounding tissue. The extent of associated WM injury seems to be the main predictor for an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome. Aim: Assessing WM injury in preterm born neonates with PHVD at term-equivalent age (TEA) by measuring the ADC on diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI). Methods: In this retrospective patient-controlled study, 23 preterm infants with PHVD (median GA 27.3 weeks (range 25.6-30.6)), admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), were matched to 23 control patients for gender and GA (median GA 27.4 (range 25.3-30.9)). DW-MRI was performed in all neonates at TEA. Regions of interest were drawn manually on the ADC-map with equal size and location in the frontal, parietal and occipital WM bilaterally. Results: Results are presented in table 1. PHVD was associated with slightly higher ADC-values in the occipital WM (p< 0.05). No significant differences in ADC-values of the frontal and parietal WM were observed between both groups. Conclusion: Preterm born neonates with PHVD showed slightly higher ADC-values of the occipital white matter using DW-MRI at TEA. The lack of a more striking difference may be due to early treatment of PHVD at our NICU, initiated before the P97 +4mm line is crossed.