Neonatal meningitis: Preterm and term infants evaluated by magnetic-resonance-imaging-based score analysis

Objectives To investigate the difference of brain damages between preterm and term infants with bacterial meningitis by using MRI-based score analysis. Methods The clinical information and MRI dataset of 65 newborns with meningitis were reviewed, including 18 preterm infants and 47 term ones. There were 13 basic brain injury patterns identified on cranial MRI. And the severity of these injuries was graded from score 1 to 3. These 13 patterns were further classified into three major groups – white matter abnormalities (WMA), gray matter abnormalities (GMA) and non-parenchyma abnormalities (NPA). Results Of all the newborns, 63% presented with cerebral lesions (41/65) and 3% presented with cerebral plus cerebellar damages (2/65). The incidence and MRI-based score of abnormal myelination of the posterior limb of internal capsules, ventricular dilatation and periventricular white matter volume loss were significantly higher in the preterm than the term group. Regarding WMA, GMA and NPA, the score of WMA in the preterm group was significantly higher than that of the term group (p = .000). While, the differences of GMA and NPA scores between the preterm and the term groups were not significant (p = .076, .224, respectively). Conclusion White matter abnormalities were more frequently seen in the preterm infants with meningitis.