Jie Gao1,
Xianjun Li1, 2, Yumiao Zhang1, Jianghong Han1,
Xue Luo1, 2, Gang Niu1, Bolang Yu1,
Ed X. Wu3, Jian Yang1, 2
1Department
of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xian Jiaotong
University, Xi'an, Shannxi, China; 2Biomedical Engineering, School
of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shannxi, China; 3Laboratory
of Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
This DTI study aimed to investigate and document the different white matter (WM) variations due to punctate white matter lesions (PWML) with varying severity using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis. 21 normal preterm neonates and 36 preterm neonates with PWML (18 cases in grade I, 7 cases in grade II and 11 cases in grade III) underwent conventional MRI and DTI. The results showed that there were no significant increased or decreased DTI metrics in major WM tracts of PWML neonates of grade I. For grade II, there was decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) in optic radiation (OR), cerebral peduncle (CP), posterior limb of internal capsule (PLIC), splenium of corpus callosum (SCC) and body of corpus callosum (BCC). For grade III, there were decreased FA with increased radial diffusivity (RD) and mean diffusivity (MD) in OR, PLIC, SCC, BCC, genu of corpus callosum (GCC) and external capsule (EC). These findings indicated the different outcomes of neonates associated with specific severity grade in PWML. Further study will be carried out to follow up these neonates.