“MRI results were conclusive in 86.4% of children with cerebral palsy (CP). It is highly encouraged to perform a cranial MRI in every patient with cerebral palsy … because it helps not only to reveal the etiology but allows to establish the prognosis,” states Dr. Eszter Nagy, Department of Pediatrics, Pecs Medical School, Hungary.
Dr. Greg Vigna, MD, JD, national birth injury attorney, author of “The Mother’s Guide to Birth Injury”, and Board-Certified Physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation states, “A normal MRI does not rule out cerebral palsy and should not be the reason for delaying physical and occupational care for babies at risk. We anticipate there will be an expanded use of structural MRI technology using diffusion MRI at 3-4 months of corrected age in high-risk very pre-term (VPT) infants to allow for early diagnosis in the future.”
What else did Dr. Nagy report in “The Usefulness of MRI Classification System (MRICS) in Cerebral Palsy Cohort”?:
“Cerebral palsy (CP) is a term for a group of conditions where the common element is a permanent but non-progressive disorder of movement or posture originating from an injury to the immature brain.
White matter injury was found mainly in the prematurity/low birth weight category while term newborn infants/newborn infants with normal birth weight were more often affected by grey matter injury or maldevelopment.
Unilateral spastic CP type was mostly associated with grey matter injury.
Bilateral spastic CP was most frequently caused by white matter injury, where bilateral periventricular leukomalacia seemed to be the most common etiology.
Patients with normal MRI seemed to have better GMF Classification System, Bimanual Fine Motor Function, and IQ scores, but also those with grey matter injury.
More than 60% of patients were affected by epilepsy in every group with abnormal MRI.”
Read Dr. Nagy’s article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/apa.15280
Dr. Vigna concludes, “MRI is a necessary diagnostic test in every child with cerebral palsy. Babies born before 32 weeks gestational age (Very Pre-Term or VPT) are the group most at risk and early diagnostic testing is necessary because it has been estimated that 10% of VPT babies will be diagnosed with cerebral palsy and that risk increases with decreasing gestational age.”
Read Dr. Vigna’s book, “The Mother’s Guide to Birth Injury.”
Dr. Vigna is a California and Washington DC lawyer who focuses on neurological injuries caused by medical negligence. Ben Martin Law Group is a national pharmaceutical injury and birth injury law firm in Dallas, Texas. The attorneys are product liability and medical malpractice attorneys, and they represent neurological injuries across the country.
To learn more, visit the Vigna Law Group.
