Association of Total Sarnat Score with brain injury and neurodevelopmental outcomes after neonatal encephalopathy

We examined the association of Total Sarnat Score (TSS) with brain injury on neonatal magnetic resonance (MR) and adverse neurodevelopmental outcome (NDO) (death or moderate or severe disability) at 2 years of age in 145 infants undergoing therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy. TSS was associated with basal ganglia/thalamic injury on conventional MR (p=0.03) and thalamic N-acetyl aspartate on MR spectroscopy (R²=0.16, p=0.004) at 2 weeks of age, and Bayley Composite Cognitive (R²=0.18, p=0.01), Motor (R²=0.15, p=0.02) and Language (R²=0.11, p=0.01) Scores at 2 years of age after adjustment for seizures at the time of neurological assessment. The accuracy of TSS (area under the curve (AUC)=0.71) for predicting adverse NDO was similar to the modified Sarnat staging (AUC=0.72). TSS of >12 within 6 hours of birth indicated high risk of adverse NDO, while TSS of <4 indicated intact survival and was reassuring of a good outcome among cooled infants.