An MRI scan can help in predicting future developmental outcomes of pre-term infants, according to US researchers. The scan reveals abnormalities no picked up by cranial ultrasound and can be used to predict problems that would become apparent by age two years.
Terrie Inder of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis working with colleagues in New Zealand and Australia have discovered that MRI can reveal brain abnormalities in very premature babies born at 30 weeks or less. They monitored 167 pre-term infants from birth to age two years having graded these abnormalities to see if there is a correlation with any severe delays in cognitive and psychomotor development, cerebral palsy, or hearing or visual impairments in the two-year olds.
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