Using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale to early identify very low-birth-weight infants with cystic periventricular leukomalacia

We examined whether the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) is able to identify very low-birth-weight (VLBW) preterm infants with cystic periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) as early as 6months of corrected age. Longitudinal follow-up AIMS assessments were done at 6, 12, and 18months old for 35 VLBW infants with cystic PVL (cPVL⁺), 70 VLBW infants without cystic PVL (cPVL^-), and 76 term infants (healthy controls: HC). Corrected age was used for the preterm infants. The cPVL⁺ group had significantly lower prone, supine and sitting subscales at age 6, 12, and 18months than the cPVL^- group (all p<0.05). The cPVL^- group showed significantly lower supine, prone, sitting, and standing subscales than the HC group only at age 6months. At age 6months, the areas under the receiver operator curve used to discriminate the cPVL⁺ infants from cPVL^- infants were 0.82±0.04 for prone, 0.93±0.02 for supine, 0.83±0.05 for sitting, and 0.62±0.07 for standing. The AIMS may help early identify VLBW infants with cystic PVL at age 6months old.