The aetiology of cerebral palsy

Abstract

I have attempted to give an overview of the latest thoughts on the aetiology of the cerebral palsies. These motor disabilities are of continuing interest and their prevalence is rising, particularly in low birth weight preterm singletons and multiple births. The likely multiplicity of causes demands intelligent investigation probably in collaborative population data bases. Ultrasound and other scans may provide better data on both site and timing of neonatal brain damage. However these are more likely to have been done on cerebral palsied children who were preterm than on those born at term. There are currently no clear preventive messages except those relating to postnatal cerebral palsy or encouraging strategies to reverse the increases in multiple births. The challenges now are to obtain better data on the antenatal factors and on causal sequences which may be important. The Little Foundation is seeking to encourage such collaborative studies. Other suggestions from our workshop [14] included attempting to follow up those infants who have been participants in large randomised controlled trials (such as those evaluating surfactant) to the age when they can be confidently diagnosed as having cerebral palsy. If antenatal data have been collected on them they may form the basis for a cohort analysis relating risk to cerebral palsy occurrence, as well as to answer questions about whether the intervention influenced cerebral palsy occurrence.