In low-weight and premature immature infants (20 to 35 weeks’ gestational age), there sometimes occurs, within a few days after birth, a catastrophic decline in cerebral function, usually preceded by respiratory distress (hyaline membrane disease) with spells of cyanosis and apnea. Also evident are deficiencies of brainstem automatisms (sucking and swallowing), bulging of the fontanels, and sanguineous CSF. If the infant becomes completely unresponsive, death usually ensues within a few days. Autopsy discloses a small lake of blood in each cerebral hemisphere (often asymmetrically distributed), occupying the highly cellular (subependymal) germinal matrix zone, near the caudate nucleus at the level of the foramen of Monro. This region is supplied by the lenticulostriate, choroidal, and Heubner recurrent arteries and is drained by deep veins, which enter the vein of Galen. In approximately 25 percent of cases, the blood remains loculated in the matrix zone, while in the majority it ruptures into the lateral ventricle or adjacent brain tissue. In a series of 914 consecutive autopsies in newborns, subependymal hemorrhage was found in 284 (31 percent); practically all of these neonates were of low birth weight, according to Banker and Bruce-Gregorios.
Lesser degrees of this cerebral hemorrhage are now being identified by ultrasonography (Fig. 37-14) and CT, and it is apparent that many infants with smaller hemorrhages survive. Some rapidly develop an obstructive hydrocephalus and require a ventricular shunt. In others, the hydrocephalus stabilizes and there is clinical improvement. Several series of surviving cases have now been followed for many years. Those in whom the hemorrhage was more extensive are often left with motor and intellectual handicaps.
Viewed from the perspective of cerebral palsy, just over half of the patients in the Swedish series of Hagberg and Hagberg with spastic diplegia had matrix hemorrhages, leukomalacia (see further on), or both. Congenital hemiplegia or quadriplegia was observed at a lower frequency. In another series of 20 cases of posthemorrhagic hydro-cephalus (Chaplin et al), 40 percent had significant motor deficits and more than 60 percent had IQ scores of less than 85. In an experience with 12 less severely affected surviving cases (mean birth weight 1.8 kg and gestational age of 32.3 weeks), R.D. Adams noted that only 1 had a residual spastic diplegia and 9 had IQs in the low-normal or normal range (personal communication).
The cause of matrix hemorrhage is not entirely clear. In all probability it is related to greatly increased pressure in the thin-walled veins of the germinal matrix coupled with a lack of adequate supporting tissue in these zones. During periods of unstable arterial or venous blood pressure that occur with the pulmonary disorders of immature infants, these thin-walled vessels rupture. These infants are also prone to the development of another characteristic lesion of the cerebral white matter (periventricular leukomalacia; see below), and the neurologic deficits resulting from these two lesions may be additive.