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Value of cranial ultrasound at initiation of therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy

Journal of Perinatology volume 42, pages 335–340 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Objective

There is variation in the clinical practice for the use of cranial ultrasound (cUS) at the time of initiation of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for neonatal encephalopathy. The role of cUS in selecting patients who may benefit from TH or excluding those where TH may impose risk is unknown.

Study design

A retrospective study was conducted on infants who received TH at a single tertiary center. Findings from cUS at initiation of TH were compared to findings from MRI following the completion of TH.

Results

One hundred and eight infants were studied. Of the 55 with abnormalities on early cUS, 50 did not have corresponding MRI abnormalities. In contrast, 16 infants had some degree of intracranial hemorrhage detected on their MRI that was not noted on earlier cUS.

Conclusions

This study challenges whether cUS is an essential universal screening tool prior to the commencement of TH.

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Fig. 1: Flow chart of the retrospective study population.
Fig. 2: Representative images for infants described in Table 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    William Sanislow, Elizabeth Singh, Terrie Inder & Mohamed El-Dib

  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    William Sanislow

  3. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Edward Yang, Terrie Inder & Mohamed El-Dib

  4. Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Edward Yang

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  1. William Sanislow
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  5. Mohamed El-Dib
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Contributions

WS contributed to the conception of the work, data acquisition, and analysis. He drafted the paper, approved final version and agrees with all aspects of the work. ES, EY, TI, and ME contributed to the conception of the work. They revised the paper critically for important intellectual content, approved final version and agreed with all aspects of the work.

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Correspondence to Mohamed El-Dib.

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Sanislow, W., Singh, E., Yang, E. et al. Value of cranial ultrasound at initiation of therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy. J Perinatol 42, 335–340 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-021-01233-0

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