Cerebral NMRTomography in children with connatal hemiplegia

Aim: The cause of a connatal hemiplegia was retrospectivly investigated in children born at term. Patients and methods: 14 patients (aged 8 month to 15 years) underwent cerb ral MR scanning. Findings were correlated with clinical histories. Results: Morphologic lesions were found in all patients. The following patt erns could be distinguished according to pathophysiological considerations: Cerebral malformations (n = 3), periventricular leucomalazia (n = 2), peri ventricular parenchymal loss (n = 2), subcortical leucomalazia (n = 1), sub cortical-cortical parenchymal loss (n = 6). In 13 of 14 patients clinical d ata reported a normal gestation and delivery. Discussion: According to maturation-dependent pathophysiological mechanisms the type of lesion can be correlated with the gestational age at which the underlying impact occured. In most of our patients this happened prenatall y.