Clinical significance of detecting serum melatonin and SBDPs in brain injury in preterm infants.

BACKGROUND

To investigate the clinical values of serum melatonin and αII spectrin cleavage products (SBDPs) in assessing the severity of brain injury in preterm infants.

METHODS

Sixty-four premature infants in total were selected and classified into the brain injury group (BI, n = 30) and the non-brain injury group (CON, n = 34) according to cranial imaging examination. The serum melatonin and SBDPs were detected by ELISA. All the preterm infants were received NBNA testing at 40 weeks of corrected gestational age.

RESULTS

The levels of melatonin and SBDPs in the BI group were significantly higher than the CON group (p < 0.05) and the levels in the infants with severe brain injury were significantly higher than those with mild brain injury (p < 0.05), as well as exhibiting a negative correlation with the NBNA score at 40 weeks of corrected gestational age (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Detecting melatonin and SBDPs has clinical value in diagnosing and assessing the severity of brain injury in preterm infants.