Morphologic correlates of age at death of infants with perinatal telencephalic leukoencephalopathy.

The ages at death of neonates with various constellations of those abnormalities of cerebral white matter thought to represent a response to injury have been compared to determine the temporal relationships of the various morphologic expressions of perinatal telencephalic leukoencephalopathy. The maximum risk of hypertrophic astrocytes (HA) without amphophilic globules (GL) preceded the maximum risk of HA with GL. Of all infants with HA and GL, those without necrotic foci (NF) tended to die at a younger age than those with NF. These and other findings have been interpreted as evidence that perinatal telencephalic leukoencephalopathy may consist of several morphologic constellations whose differences may reflect variations in (a) the time of occurrence of an insult, (b) the duration of an insult or (c) the survival after an insult.