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Updated: Sep 15, 2026
Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale
Published on: August 25, 2014
Denver developmental screening test II for early identification of the infants who will develop major neurological
O Hallioglu1, A K Topaloglu, A Zenciroglu
1Mersin University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Mersin, Turkey. ohallioglu@mersin.edu.tr
Background:
The primary aim of this study was to find widely available, inexpensive, and non-invasive parameters for early identification or prediction of the infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) who will have a severe adverse outcome (classified as death or a major neurological deficit).
Methods:
Fifty-seven full-term or near-term newborn infants with a diagnosis of HIE were consecutively admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit and studied. Occurrence of seizures during the first 24 h, cranial ultrasonography (US) findings within the first 5 days of life, and Denver developmental screening test II (DDST II) at 6 months of age, were analyzed in relation to mortality and neurological status at 2 years of age.
Results:
Of the 57 infants, 10 were lost to follow-up. Twenty of the remaining 47 infants had a severe adverse outcome. Among the predictors of severe adverse outcome, occurrence of seizures was found to have a poor predictive accuracy. Cranial US had 100% sensitivity, however with a rather low specificity (55%). However, DDST II at 6 months of age, yielded a very high predictive accuracy (sensitivity=100%, specificity=95%).
Conclusion:
We conclude that DDST II at 6 months of age could be used in predicting severe neurological outcome in infants with HIE.
