Elevated Protein Can Help Predict Brain Injury in Newborns

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that increased blood levels of a protein specific to central nervous system cells that are vital to the brain’s structure can help physicians identify newborns with brain injuries due to lack of oxygen.

Measurements of the protein can also track how well a body-cooling therapy designed to prevent permanent brain damage is working. A detailed report of the Hopkins team’s finding is published in the current American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The yearlong study looked at levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in 23 newborns born between 36 and 41 weeks’ gestation who were diagnosed with clinical oxygen deficiency to the brain (hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or HIE) and compared them with those in babies born at the same point in the pregnancy without brain injury.”

HIE may cause death in the newborn period or result in developmental delay, mental retardation or cerebral palsy. In the United States, the incidence of HIE is 1 to 8 cases per 1000 births.

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