Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-3-2025

Identifier

DOI: 10.1186/s12887-025-06119-0; PMCID: PMC12495792

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In extremely preterm newborns, intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) greatly influences neurodevelopmental outcomes. Preterm newborns who later develop IVH might have altered cerebral blood flow (CBF) as measured by resistive index (RI) on Doppler ultrasound. Knowledge regarding RI in extremely premature infants remains limited.

OBJECTIVE: This pilot prospective cohort study aimed to evaluate the association between early cerebral RI (within the first 36 h of life) and the occurrence of IVH in preterm infants born at <  29 weeks’ gestation.

METHODS: Prospective cohort study in which cranial Doppler was performed in preterm infants <  29 weeks at <  36 h of age and between 5 and 7 days of age. CBF velocities and RI were measured. Clinical and demographic factors were also assessed. Statistical analyses included Pearson’s chi-square exact test, independent

RESULTS: Of the 30 enrolled infants, 27% developed an IVH. RI and peak systolic/end diastolic velocity ratio measured at <  36 h of life for the neonates with IVH were significantly higher than that for the non-IVH group (0.70(± 0.04) and 3.37(± 0.46) vs. 0.65(± 0.05) and 2.91(± 0.39);

CONCLUSION: Higher cerebral RI measured within the first 36 h of life was associated with IVH in this pilot study. These findings are preliminary and should be interpreted cautiously due to the small sample size and the exploratory nature of the study. Larger multicenter trials with serial measurements are needed to validate RI as a predictive marker for IVH.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12887-025-06119-0.

Journal Title

BMC pediatrics [electronic resource]

Volume

25

Issue

1

First Page

766

Last Page

766

PubMed ID

41044658

Keywords

IVH (intraventricular hemorrhage); NICU (neonatal intensive care unit); cerebral blood flow; premature; resistive index; very low birth weight infants

Comments

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Publisher's Link: https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-025-06119-0

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