Muscle-ultrasound evaluation in healthy pediatric subjects: Age-related normative data.

INTRODUCTION: The muscle ultrasound examination (MUS) is a noninvasive and inexpensive technique for evaluating neuromyopathies. Standardized MUS normative data are incomplete in pediatric subjects. METHODS: We performed a MUS study with 120 healthy children (59 males; mean age, 10.44 years; age range, 2-16 years). We measured the width and the echogenicity bilaterally in the following muscles: biceps brachii and brachialis, brachioradialis, forearm-flexors, rectus femoris and vastus intermedius, tibialis anterior, extensor hallucis longus, lateral and medial gastrocnemius. RESULTS: The muscle thickness increased with age for all muscles. Confidence limits were set for each age group muscle width. Echogenicity increased with age only in some muscles. DISCUSSIONS: Our MUS study provides new data on physiological muscle structural changes in healthy children to address the limited available references in this age group. Muscle Nerve 58: 245-250, 2018.

The prognostic role of evoked potentials in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic insult.

Neonatal encephalopathy is a significant cause of infant mortality and morbidity with risk of neurological sequelae in the survivors of neonates admitted to Neonatal (N) Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The EEG and Evoked Potentials (EPs) are very informative in the ICU. In particular, it is known that the SomatoSensory (SS) EPs are the best single indicator of early prognosis in adults and children patients with traumatic and/or hypoxic-ischemic coma compared to the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and CTscan. Most paediatric studies excluded newborns in an attempt to eliminate the age effects, because of the structural and functional immaturity of somatosensory system. In fact, newborns differ from adults and paediatric patients for many aspects: hypoxic-ischemic aetiology, SSEPs normative data, grading and predictive values, timing and techniques recording, clinical scales of evaluation. Recently a diagnostic and predictive role of early SSEPs has been established in perinatal hypoxic-ischemic. We reported a literature review of early diagnostic/prognostic role of SSEPs and our preliminary neurophysiological data of prospective study in mild or severe perinatal hypoxic-ischemic insult.