MRI predicts risks for premature babies
Imaging the brains of premature babies give doctors vital clues as to how those babies will develop as children, a new international study has revealed.
Researchers at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the Royal Women's Hospital, in collaboration with New Zealand researchers, studied the brains of 167 very premature babies shortly after birth using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Each baby's intellectual and motor development was then tested two years later.
Consistent with previous research, a large proportion of these children experienced developmental delay at age two.
The study, published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine, showed brain abnormalities found by MRI were better predictors of developmental problems than current methods, such as brain ultrasound.
MRI scans are not routine practise for the 3500 premature babies born in Australia each year.
The researchers hope to study these children again at six years of age to determine the long-term implications of these brain abnormalities and to see what impact these abnormalities have on brain development during early childhood.