The visibility of the periventricular crossroads of pathways in preterm infants as a predictor of neurological outcome and occurrence of neonatal epileptic seizures.

AIM: To evaluate the relationship between the neurological outcome, neonatal epileptic seizures, and signal-intensity visibility of the frontal and parietal periventricular crossroads of pathways on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in preterm infants at term-equivalent age. METHODS: The study enrolled 48 preterm infants born between 2012 and 2016. The signal-intensity characteristics of the frontal and parietal periventricular crossroads were evaluated and classified into four grades. A non-favorable outcome was defined as a motor and functional disorder with developmental delay and/or cerebral palsy. RESULTS: Neonatal seizures, epilepsy, pathological EEG and brain ultrasound finding, and brain MRI abnormalities were mostly found in neonates with non-favorable outcomes. Visible frontal and parietal periventricular crossroads were associated with a normal neurologic outcome (P=0.0004; P=0.0009, respectively). Not-visible or slightly visible periventricular crossroads were associated with non-favorable outcomes in the case of frontal crossroads (P=0.036) and not-visible periventricular crossroads in the case of both frontal and parietal crossroads (P=0.001, P=0.015, respectively). The visibility of the frontal and parietal periventricular crossroads was associated with a lack of neonatal epileptic seizures (P=0.03; P=0.02, respectively). The frontal crossroads were more frequently slightly visible, while the parietal periventricular crossroads were more frequently visible. CONCLUSION: Poor visibility of the frontal and parietal crossroads of pathways on MRI is associated with neonatal epileptic seizures and poor neurological outcomes in preterm infants at term-equivalent age.

One-Year Pilot Study Results of Newborn Screening for Spinal Muscular Atrophy in the Republic of Croatia.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disease caused by the homozygous deletion of SMN1 exon 7 in 95% of cases. The prognosis for SMA patients has improved with the development of disease-modifying therapies, all of which are available in Croatia. The best treatment outcomes occur when therapy is applied before symptoms appear, making newborn screening (NBS) for SMA a crucial factor. Since SMA NBS is the first genetic test performed in our laboratory, for successful implementation of the program, we had to overcome logistical and organizational issues. Herein, we present the results of the SMA NBS during the one-year pilot project in Croatia and verify the suitability of the Targeted qPCR™ SMA assay for SMA NBS. The pilot project started on 1 March 2023 in the Department for Laboratory Diagnostics of the University Hospital Center Zagreb. A total of 32,655 newborns were tested. Five SMA patients were detected, and their diagnoses were confirmed by the multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) assay. There have been no false positive or false negative results, to our knowledge so far. The incidence of SMA determined during the pilot study is consistent with the SMA incidence data from other European countries.