Association of aEEG and brain injury severity on MRI at term‐equivalent age in preterm infants

Aim Measures to detect and monitor brain injury in preterm infants are amplitude‐integrated electroencephalography (aEEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To investigate the association between aEEG and MRI in a large cohort of preterm infants. Five hundred and twenty‐three preterm infants were included in the study. Methods AEEG was interpreted for the total maturation score (TMS) according to Burdjalov. Cerebral MRI was evaluated using a validated scoring system by Kidokoro. Results One hundred and forty‐six infants (27.9%) showed some form of brain injury, with 111 infants (21.2%) showing mild injury and 35 (6.7%) showing severe injury. TMS were significantly higher in infants without injury compared to severe injury. When comparing infants with isolated intraventricular haemorrhage to infants without brain injury, TMS were significantly lower. Conclusion Prediction of adverse outcome is an important aspect of neonatal care. The combination of diagnostic measures evaluating brain injury might enhance our abilities in neonatal care to provide accurate information about later outcome. Early aEEG is predictive for the severity of brain injury detected by MRI at term‐equivalent age. Whether aEEG is also predictive for neurodevelopmental outcome needs to be further investigated in relation to the various patterns of preterm brain injury.