Backgrounds: We conducted a pilot study of the infusion of intravenous autologous cord blood (CB) in children with cerebral palsy (CP) to assess the safety and feasibility of the procedure as well as its potential efficacy in countering neurological impairment. Methods: Patients diagnosed with CP were enrolled in this study if their parents had elected to bank their CB at birth. Cryopreserved CB units were thawed and infused intravenously over 10~20 minutes. We assessed potential efficacy over 6 months by brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and various evaluation tools for motor and cognitive functions. Results: Twenty patients received autologous CB infusion and were evaluated. The types of CP were as follows: 11 quadriplegics, 6 hemiplegics, and 3 diplegics. Infusion was generally well-tolerated, although 5 patients experienced temporary nausea, hemoglobinuria, or urticaria during intravenous infusion. Diverse neurological domains improved in 5 patients (25%) as assessed with developmental evaluation tools as well as by fractional anisotropy values in brain MRI-DTI. The neurologic improvement occurred significantly in patients with diplegia or hemiplegia rather than quadriplegia. Conclusions: Autologous CB infusion is safe and feasible, and has yielded potential benefits in children with CP.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Patients with cerebral palsy have variable clinical presentations such as hemiplegic, diplegic, or quadriplegic patterns though they have PVL on conventional MR images. The authors investigated whether DTT can differentiate between hemiplegic and diplegic CP in patients presenting with symmetric PVL on conventional MR images. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred thirteen consecutive pediatric patients with definite hemiplegic (59 patients; 30 boys, 29 girls; mean age, 34.19 months; range, 24–52 months) or diplegic (54 patients; 27 boys, 27 girls; mean age, 31.07 months; range, 24–48 months) symptoms and bilateral symmetric PVL on conventional brain MR imaging were recruited. The states of CSTs were examined by using DTT, and the asymmetries of right and left CSTs in the hemiplegic and diplegic groups were compared by using asymmetric anisotropy indexes and asymmetric mean diffusivity indexes. RESULTS: All patients in the hemiplegic group with asymmetric results exhibited disrupted integrities of more affected CSTs and sparing of less affected CSTs. However, diplegic patients revealed symmetric disrupted findings of the right and left CSTs at the upper periventricular level. Asymmetric anisotropy index and asymmetric mean diffusivity index values were significantly higher in the hemiplegic group than in the diplegic group (P < .05), and these results of DTT significantly corresponded with their typical clinical manifestation. CONCLUSIONS: DTT may be very useful for the detailed estimation of the CST state in patients with bilateral symmetric PVL.

Neural Regen Res, Official publication of Publishing House of Neural Regeneration Research China Association of Rehabilitation Medicine,China

Previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies regarding pediatric patients with motor dysfunction have confirmed the correlation between DTI parameters of the injured corticospinal tract and the severity of motor dysfunction. There is also evidence that DTI parameters can help predict the prognosis of motor function of patients with cerebral palsy. But few studies are reported on the DTI parameters that can reflect the motor function outcomes of pediatric patients with hemiplegic cerebral palsy after rehabilitation treatment. In the present study, 36 pediatric patients with hemiplegic cerebral palsy were included. Before and after rehabilitation treatment, DTI was used to measure the fiber number (FN), fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of bilateral corticospinal tracts. Functional Level of Hemiplegia scale (FxL) was used to assess the therapeutic effect of rehabilitative therapy on clinical hemiplegia. Correlation analysis was performed to assess the statistical interrelationship between the change amount of DTI parameters and FxL. DTI findings obtained at the initial and follow-up evaluations demonstrated that more affected corticospinal tract yielded significantly decreased FN and FA values and significantly increased ADC value compared to the less affected corticospinal tract. Correlation analysis results showed that the change amount of FxL was positively correlated to FN and FA values, and the correlation to FN was stronger than the correlation to FA. The results suggest that FN and FA values can be used to evaluate the motor function outcomes of pediatric patients with hemiplegic cerebral palsy after rehabilitation treatment and FN is of more significance for evaluation.