[Value of echoencephalography in the diagnosis of periventricular leukomalacia in children and the prognosis of their development].

The investigation was conducted to reveal reliable echographic features of early (necrotic) stages of periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) on the basis of retrospective analysis of echograms of decreased children (with postmortem diagnosis of PVL) and survived newborns with pronounced cystic changes in the periventricular areas (advanced PVL stage), which were revealed during dynamic echoencephalography. Altogether 268 echograms of 78 children with a birth-weight from 700 to 2400 g were analysed. All children but one were born preterm. Ultrasound device "Aloka-SSD 118" (Japan), with a transducer frequency of 5mHz, was used during frontal fontanel echoencephalography. Three patterns of echographic image of periventricular areas compromised with the aforementioned disease were identified. In the detection of early PVL stages, the specificity of the technique was 94% and sensitivity, 86%. The followup that lasted from 9 months to 2.5 years revealed varying pronounced neurologic disorders in all the survived children with PVL.