Head circumference trajectory in children with perinatal stroke.

Background: Perinatal stroke is a leading cause of hemiparetic cerebral palsy and lifelong disability. Neurodevelopmental outcomes are difficult to predict and markers of long-term poor outcome continue to be investigated. Deceleration in growth of head circumference has been associated with worse developmental outcomes in neonatal brain injury. We hypothesized that perinatal stroke would result in decreased rates of head growth during childhood that would be associated with worse developmental outcomes.

Methods: Patients with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-confirmed neonatal arterial ischemic stroke and arterial presumed perinatal ischemic stroke were identified from a population-based research cohort (Alberta Perinatal Stroke Project). Demographics and occipital-frontal circumference data were collected from medical records. Head growth was compared to typically developing control charts using a 2-tailed test. The Fisher exact test was used to examine associations between Pediatric Stroke Outcome Measures (PSOM) scores and occipital-frontal head circumference.

Results: Three hundred fifteen occipital-frontal head circumference measurements were collected from 102 patients (48 female, 54 male), over a median of 3.2 years (standard deviation = 5.18, range = 0-18.3). After 3 months for female patients and 1 year for male patients, occipital-frontal head circumference deviated and remained below normal growth trajectories ( < .05) with a large effect size (Cohen >0.8). Poor outcome (PSOM ≥ 1) was associated with smaller occipital-frontal head circumference ( < .05).

Conclusion: Head growth deceleration is observed in children with perinatal arterial ischemic stroke and is associated with poor outcome. Head circumference may be a tool to alert clinicians to the potential of abnormal neurologic outcome.