Xiawei Ou1,
Charles M. Glasier1, Raghu H. Ramakrishnaiah1, Sarah B.
Mulkey2, Vivien L. Yap2, Jeffrey R. Kaiser2
1Radiology,
Arkansas Children's Hospital; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences,
Little Rock, AR, United States; 2Pediatrics, Arkansas Children's
Hospital; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR,
United States
Cerebral white matter injury is very common in extremely low birth-weight (ELBW) infant survivors of intensive care and is associated with poor long-term neurological outcomes. In this study, we used DTI in addition to conventional MRI to evaluate two groups of ELBW infants: one was randomized to permissive hypercapnia ventilation during the first week of life, and the other was randomized to normocapnic ventilation. We found that while the average white matter score from conventional MRI for the hypercapnic group was not significantly different with that in the normocapnic group, DTI revealed lower FA values and higher MD values in the genu and splenium of hypercapnic subjects, suggesting that hypercapnia may have unfavorable effects on the white matter development of ELBW infants, and DTI may be more sensitive to detect these effects than conventional MRI.