Assessment of Brain Injury and Brain Volumes after Posthemorrhagic Ventricular Dilatation: A Nested Substudy of the Randomized Controlled ELVIS Trial

Objective To compare the effect of early and late intervention for posthemorrhagic ventricular dilatation on additional brain injury and ventricular volume using term-equivalent age-MRI. Study design In the Early vs Late Ventricular Intervention Study (ELVIS) trial, 126 preterm infants <= 34 weeks of gestation with posthemorrhagic ventricular dilatation were randomized to low-threshold (ventricular index >p97 and anterior horn width > 6 mm) or high-threshold (ventricular index >p97 + 4 mm and anterior horn width > 10 mm) groups. In 88 of those (80%) with a term-equivalent age-MRI, the Kidokoro Global Brain Abnormality Score and the frontal and occipital horn ratio were measured. Automatic segmentation was used for volumetric analysis. Results The total Kidokoro score of the infants in the low-threshold group (n = 44) was lower than in the high-threshold group (n = 44; median, 8 [IQR, 5-12] vs median 12 [IQR, 9-17], respectively; P < .001). More infants in the low-threshold group had a normal or mildly increased score vs more infants in the high-threshold group with a moderately or severely increased score (46% vs 11% and 89% vs 54%, respectively; P = .002). The frontal and occipital horn ratio was lower in the low-threshold group (median, 0.42 [IQR, 0.34-0.63]) than the high-threshold group (median 0.48 [IQR, 0.37-0.68], respectively; P = .001). Ventricular cerebrospinal fluid volumes could be calculated in 47 infants and were smaller in the low-threshold group (P =.03). Conclusions More brain injury and larger ventricular volumes were demonstrated in the high vs the low-threshold group. These results support the positive effects of early intervention for posthemorrhagic ventricular dilatation.