Longitudinal Analysis of Amplitude-Integrated Electroencephalography for Outcome Prediction in Infants with Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy: A Validation Study.

Objectives: To validate the prognostic accuracy of a previously published tool (HOPE calculator) using longitudinal analysis of amplitude-integrated electroencephalography (aEEG) background activity and sleep-wake cycling to predict favorable or adverse 2-year neurodevelopmental outcome in infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) undergoing therapeutic hypothermia (TH), and to evaluate the predictive value for outcome at 5-8 years of age.

Study design: Single-center retrospective cohort study in 117 infants who underwent TH for HIE between 2008 and 2022. We scored 2-channel aEEG BGPs, sleep-wake cycling, and seizure activity at 6-hour intervals for 84 hours. Neurodevelopmental outcome at 2 years was evaluated using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III, defining adverse outcome as death, cerebral palsy, and/or cognitive/motor scores of <85. Adverse outcome at 5-8 years was defined as a total IQ score of <85, a Movement-ABC-2 score of less than p15, cerebral palsy, severe sensory impairment, or death.

Results: The prediction model showed an area under the curve of 0.90 (95% CI, 0.83-0.95) at 2 years and 0.83 (95% CI, 0.73-0.92) at 5-8 years. Mean predicted probability of favorable outcome was 74.5% (95% CI, 69.4-79.6) in the favorable outcome group compared with 32.8% (95% CI, 23.5-42.2) in the adverse outcome group (P < .001) at 2 years (n = 115) and 76.85% (95% CI, 70.0-83.4) compared with 40.7% (95% CI, 30.0-51.4) at 5-8 years (n = 68).

Conclusions: Our study provided external validation of the HOPE calculator, assessing longitudinal aEEG background activity during TH in infants with HIE. The results suggest that this method can predict favorable or adverse outcomes accurately not only at 2 but also at 5-8 years of age.