Assessment of intraventricular hemorrhage risk in preterm infants using mathematically simulated cerebral blood flow

Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH)4 is one of the most threatening neurological complications associated with preterm birth which can lead to long-term sequela such as cerebral palsy. Early recognition of IVH risk may prevent its occurrence and/or reduce its severity. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, risk factors significantly associated with IVH were identified and integrated into risk scales. A special aspect of this study was the inclusion of mathematically calculated cerebral blood flow (CBF) as an independent predictive variable in the risk score. Statistical analysis was based on clinical data from 254 preterm infants with gestational age between 23 and 30 weeks of pregnancy. Several risk scores were developed for different clinical situations. Their efficacy was tested using ROC analysis, and validation of the best scores was performed on an independent cohort of 63 preterm infants with equivalent gestational age. The inclusion of routinely measured clinical parameters significantly improved IVH prediction compared to models that included only obstetric parameters and medical diagnoses. In addition, risk assessment with numerically calculated CBF demonstrated higher predictive power than risk assessments based on standard clinical parameters alone. The best performance in the validation cohort (with AUC = 0.85 and TPR = 0.94 for severe IVH, AUC = 0.79 and TPR = 0.75 for all IVH grades and FPR = 0.48 for cases without IVH) was demonstrated by the risk score based on the MAP, pH, CRP, CBF and leukocytes count.