Clinical findings of children born at term with periventricular leukomalacia

Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is observed predominantly in premature infants and clinical findings in these patients are well recognized. PVL has also been reported in children born at term. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the long-term clinical findings in term children with PVL. Thirty-one cases with PVL that 11 included term (mean age: 5,1 +/- 2,6 years) and 20 preterm born children (mean age: 4 +/- 1,3 years) were studied. Their prenatal, natal, postnatal characteristics, physcosocial and motor development, epilepsy existence and cranial MRI findings were examined and the results were analyzed by unpaired t and chi square tests. No difference was observed between term and preterm children groups in terms of mother's age at pregnancy, seizures in the first week after birth, epilepsy existence, psychosocial and motor development (p> 0.05). Although the psychosocial development had been found related to motor development, MRI findings weren't related to psychosocial and motor development. Spastic diparesis was the most frequent neuromotor abnormality in preterm children (45 %) but was not seen in term children (p< 0.05). Our results showed that the spectrum of neuromotor abnormalities of term children with PVL could represent a distinct clinical entity.