Brain Damage in the Preterm Infant

This Clinic in Developmental Medicine describes a meticulous survey of germinal matrix/intraventricular haemorrhage in preterm infants. The babies weighed 501-2000g at their birth in three New Jersey counties between 1984 and 1987. They were studied prospectively with cranial ultrasound; the findings were correlated with very detailed pathological examination of the brains of those who died, and with later outcome in the survivors. The numbers studied in this population-based sample were large enough both to test and to generate hypotheses about the causes and consequences of haemorrhage.

1. The central New Jersey neonatal brain hemorrhage study: an overview. 2. Neuropathologic methods. 3. Ultrasonographic methods. 4. The pathology of germinal matrix/intraventricular hemorrhage: a review. 5. Germinal matrix and intraventricular bleeding: location, extent, ultrasound imaging. 6. White matter damage: terminology, typology, pathogenesis. 7. The varieties of leukomalacia. 8. Subarachnoid hemorrhage. 9. Associated lesions: cerebellar hemorrhage, subicular necrosis, thalamic necrosis. 10. The prognosis of brain damage in preterm infants.