Seventy-three full term neonates were identified as a sample of convenience for a retrospective case-control study following an IRB-approved protocol, between January 2008 and July 2018. A waiver of consent/parental permission, assent and HIPAA authorization has been approved by our IRB. All neonates had T1WI, T2WI, DWI images and PASL of the brain. For clarity, T1WI, T2WI, and DWI sequences will be referred as conventional MRI.
The neonates were divided into three groups: control, HIE/MRI⊖, HIE/MRI⊕. The patients in HIE/MRI⊖ group were with clinical HIE and normal conventional MRI, while the patients from HIE/MRI⊕ group were with clinical HIE and abnormal conventional MRI. There was a fourth additional group combining all HIE patients from the HIE/MRI⊖ and HIE/MRI⊕ groups, called HIE/MRI± group.
The PASL images were acquired with perfusion model of
PICORE Q2T from a Siemens
3T scanner using the following parameters: bolus time Tl
1 = 700 ms, inversion time T
1 = 1,800 ms, TR/TE = 2,600/14 ms, 14 slices, FOV = 200 × 200 mm, 64 × 64 matrix, voxel size=2.8 × 2.8 × 6.0 mm
3, flip angle = 90
0, 45 label/control image pairs. The reason for not using pseudo continuous arterial spin label (PCASL) is that only PASL is clinically available in our retrospective study.
Zheng Q., Martin-Saavedra J.S., Saade-Lemus S., Vossough A., Zuccoli G., Gonçalves F.G., Freeman C.W., Ouyang M., Singh V., Padula M.A., Demauro S.B., Flibotte J., Eichenwald E.C., Detre J.A., Sze R.W., Huang H, & Hwang M. (2020). Cerebral Pulsed Arterial Spin Labeling Perfusion Weighted Imaging Predicts Language and Motor Outcomes in Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 8, 576489.