AUTHOR=Deshpande Poorva , Barbosa de Olivera Caio , Jain Amish , Hahn Cecil , Shah Prakesh S. , Guerguerian Anne-Marie , McNamara Patrick J. TITLE=Relationship between cerebral oxygenation, cardiac output, and blood pressure during transitional period in extremely low gestational age neonates JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pediatrics VOLUME=11 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pediatrics/articles/10.3389/fped.2023.1187769 DOI=10.3389/fped.2023.1187769 ISSN=2296-2360 ABSTRACT=Objective

To describe the relationship between cerebral oxygenation, cardiac output, arterial blood pressure (BP), and cerebral blood flow velocity in extremely low gestational age neonates (ELGANs) during transition.

Methods

This study comprises secondary analyses from a prospective observational study conducted at a tertiary Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Recruited ELGANs underwent cerebral saturation (CrSO2) monitoring and serial echocardiography during 72 h from birth. Correlative analyses of CrSO2 and cerebral fractional tissue oxygen extraction (CFTOE) with left (LVO) and right ventricular output (RVO), superior vena cava (SVC) flow, middle cerebral artery blood flow mean velocity (MCA.MV), systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), and mean (MBP) BP were conducted.

Results

Fifty ELGANs with median (range) gestational age of 25.9 (23.1–27.9) weeks were recruited. Echocardiography was performed sequentially at a median (range) age 5.0 (3.8–6.6), 17.3 (15.4–19.4), 31.0 (27.0–34.1), and 53.7 (49.3–58.3) hours. RVO, LVO, CrSO2, and SBP increased over time but no changes in MBP, DBP, CFTOE, MCA.MV or SVC flow were noted. A weak correlation was identified between CrSO2 and SBP (r2 = 0.11, p = 0.047) and MBP (r2 = 0.12, p = 0.04) at 17.3 (15.4–19.4) hours. No correlation of either CrSO2 or CFTOE with any measures of blood flow was identified.

Conclusion

There is a weak correlation between measures of cardiac output, BP, and MCA.MV with both CrSO2 and CFTOE in ELGANs during transition. Whether this finding suggests intact cerebral autoregulation requires prospective evaluation in a cohort of sick ELGANs.