Abstract TP159: Association of Lesion Characteristics and Neurological Outcomes in Neonatal Arterial Ischemic Stroke Patients

Background: Neonatal arterial ischemic stroke (NAIS) occurs as a result of an acute focal cerebral arterial infarction between birth and 28 days of life in nearly 1:2500 live births. As there are few studies examining the relationship between NAIS lesion characteristics and clinical outcomes, this study aims to determine if lesion volume and lesion location are associated with abnormal neurological outcomes in NAIS. Methods: Semi-automated lesion segmentation of co-registered multi-modal images was conducted using ITK-SNAP. Semi-automated lesion segmentations with manual corrections were performed using ITK-SNAP software. Lesion volumes were corrected for head size by dividing lesion volumes by total intracranial volume, and correlated (using Kendall's Tau-b [τ b ]) with neurological outcome that was assessed with the Pediatric Stroke Outcome Measure (PSOM). Results: Participants included N=20 NAIS patients (mean [M] weeks gestation=39.5, +/-1.64; 55% male, 70% single infarct, 75% left-sided lesions). Outcome was assessed an average of 312, +/-7.6 days post-stroke. Neurological deficits were present in 50% (with seizures in 85%) at time of stroke, and infarct locations most commonly involved supratentorial cortical structures (75%), however none were correlated with outcome. Larger lesion volumes (M=5.35 mm 3 , +/-0.069) were correlated with poor outcome (τ b =.444, p=0.02). Conclusion: We found larger lesion volume to be associated with atypical clinical outcomes following NAIS. Further analysis is in progress that include changes over time in lesion characteristics and outcome. These results demonstrate a need for better characterize the relationship between lesion characteristics and outcomes in NAIS.