Li Qiang, Ju Xin-Wei, Xu Jing, Jiang Jiuhong, Lu Chang, Ju Xing-Da
School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Dec 5;16:998206. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.998206. eCollection 2022.
Fetal ventriculomegaly (VM) is one of the most common abnormalities of the central nervous system (CNS), which can be significantly identified by brain anomalies prenatally by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Aberrant white blood cells (WBCs) levels indicate that the maternal is suffering from the infection. Previous studies have confirmed that prenatal infection can affect fetal brain structure, but there is no research revealed the association between maternal blood parameters with fetal VM until now.
We measured the width of the lateral ventricle of 142 fetuses, which were divided into the fetal VM group ( = 70) and the normal lateral ventricle group ( = 72). We compared maternal blood cell levels between the two groups and investigate potential biomarkers of fetal VM.
High levels of maternal WBC and neutrophil (NE#) levels were observed in fetuses with VM ( < 0.001), while lymphocyte percentage, monocytes (MO#), neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet were also increased in the fetal VM group ( = 0.033, 0.027, 0.034, and 0.025, respectively). receiver-operator curve (ROC) analysis suggested that WBC and NE# counts might be useful to distinguish fetuses with enlarged lateral ventricles (AUC = 0.688, 0.678, respectively).
The current study emphasizes the importance of maternal infection for fetal brain growth, which could provide important information for prenatal diagnosis of CNS anomalies. Future research needs longitudinal analysis and exploration of the influence of maternal blood inflammatory marker levels on fetal brain development.
胎儿脑室扩大（VM）是中枢神经系统（CNS）最常见的异常之一，产前通过磁共振成像（MRI）可显著识别脑部异常。白细胞（WBC）水平异常表明母亲受到感染。先前的研究证实产前感染会影响胎儿脑结构，但迄今为止尚无研究揭示母亲血液参数与胎儿VM之间的关联。
我们测量了142例胎儿侧脑室的宽度，将其分为胎儿VM组（n = 70）和正常侧脑室组（n = 72）。我们比较了两组母亲的血细胞水平，并研究胎儿VM的潜在生物标志物。
VM胎儿中观察到母亲白细胞和中性粒细胞（NE#）水平较高（P < 0.001），而胎儿VM组中淋巴细胞百分比、单核细胞（MO#）、中性粒细胞/淋巴细胞比值（NLR）和血小板也增加（分别为P = 0.033、0.027、0.034和0.025）。受试者工作特征曲线（ROC）分析表明，白细胞和NE#计数可能有助于区分侧脑室扩大的胎儿（AUC分别为0.688、0.678）。
当前研究强调母亲感染对胎儿脑生长的重要性，可为中枢神经系统异常的产前诊断提供重要信息。未来的研究需要对母亲血液炎症标志物水平对胎儿脑发育的影响进行纵向分析和探索。
