Active cooling temperature required to achieve therapeutic hypothermia correlates with short‐term outcome in neonatal hypoxic‐ischaemic encephalopathy

Key points Hypoxic‐ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) affects 2–4/1000 live term births. Treatment with therapeutic hypothermia (TH) improves the long‐term neurodevelopmental outcome of neonates with moderate to severe HIE. However, early prediction of outcome still remains challenging, and no reliable and easily obtainable biomarker has been identified to date. Neonates with HIE display impaired thermoregulation, resulting in spontaneous hypothermia. The degree of cooling required to achieve TH may therefore act as a biomarker of injury severity. The present study demonstrates a correlation between servo‐controlled mattress temperature during TH and short‐term outcome. Neonates with an unfavourable outcome require less cooling to maintain a core temperature between 33 and 34°C during TH compared to neonates with a favourable outcome. The degree of impaired temperature regulation was strongly associated with a high magnetic resonance imaging injury score and death. Cooling device output temperature is a potential and easily obtainable early physiological biomarker of outcome in infants with HIE undergoing TH. Neonatal hypoxic‐ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a leading cause of death and disability in children. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) at 33.5°C for 72 h is the only therapy to date shown to improve outcome in moderate to severe HIE; however, assessment of severity and prediction of outcome remains challenging. Infants with HIE display significant physiological perturbations, including spontaneous hypothermia. We hypothesized that neonates with more severe brain injury on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) would exhibit a greater degree of spontaneous hypothermia, and thus require less active cooling to attain TH. Twenty‐eight neonates with moderate or severe HIE treated with TH were included in the present study. MRI images obtained on day of life 4–7 were scored according to standardized injury criteria. Unfavourable outcome was defined as death or significant grey matter injury on MRI according to a previously validated scoring system. A significantly higher cooling device output temperature was seen in infants with an unfavourable outcome. All neonates who required the mattress to provide a temperature ≥32°C to maintain their core body temperature at 33.5°C had a high likelihood of unfavourable outcome (likelihood ratio = 14.4). By contrast, infants who never required a device output temperature ≥32°C had a low likelihood of an unfavourable outcome (likel