Half-Quantitative Assessment of Myelination Progression in Normal Infants and Children During 6-48 Months with Conventional T2-Weighted Images

Zhijie Jian¹, Jie Gao¹, Jianghong Han¹, yumiao zhang¹, Bolang Yu¹, Jian Yang¹

The purpose of the present study was to half-quantitatively assess the myelination progression of subcortical white matter (WM) in normal infants and children from 6 months to 48 months by conventional T2-weighted image (T2WI). 54 infants and children without diseases potentially affecting white matter were retrospectively evaluated in this study. The myelination progression in WM of the frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital lobes and peritrigonal region were respectively graded according to regions with thread-like hypointensity in T2WIs. The total scores representing the maturity of cerebral myelination were acquired by summing the grade of above mentioned WM regions. The repeatability and reliability of this points-scoring system for assessing myelination progression were confirmed to be a very well by Bland-Altman statistical analysis. The positive correlation between the total scores of myelination and age with nolinear correlation coefficient of 0.843 (p<0.001) was found in this study. During the postnatal 10-16 months, the total scores of myelination varied very apparently with ages, which indicated the rapid maturation in subcortical WM in this period. Therefore, this half-quantitative points-scoring system for assessing myelination can reflect the dynamic development of white matter in infants and children and possess clinical application value.