Lipid-containing cells in the brain in sudden infant death syndrome

The authors report a semi-quantitative autopsy study on the content of lipid-containing cells (LCC) in corpus callosum and periventricular frontal white-matter from the brains of 96 infants. These were 55 cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), 28 with conditions expected to have caused hypoxia (hypoxic control), and 13 with conditions not expected to have caused more than brief, terminal hypoxia (non-hypoxic control). Appreciable numbers of LCC were found in the non-hypoxic control cases, but significantly more LCC were found in the hypoxic controls. LCC in SIDS cases were intermediate between the non-hypoxic and hypoxic controls. The findings are discussed in the light of an experimental primate study. The authors conclude that the slight excess of LCC in SIDS cases is more likely to be an exaggeration of normal developmental LCC accumulation than evidence of pre-terminal episodes of hypoxia.