Restricted diffusion of the corpus callosum in extensive neonatal hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a devastating brain injury that may result in death and severe neurologic deficits. Corpus callosum (CC) involvement, especially its entire involvement, is very rare in HIE. A 41-week-old male term neonate had a difficult delivery and developed cardiac arrest after birth. His Apgar scores were low in the first 10 minutes. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed high signal intensity in bilateral basal ganglia, bilateral thalami, temporofrontal cortex, subcortical white matter, perirolandic region, and the entire corpus callosum in T1 sequences. Restricted diffusion was noted on the diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) images of all these regions. CC is affected in cases of severe and advanced brain injury, and especially splenial lesions have poor outcomes. Entire CC involvement may lead to worse clinical presentation and can serve as an early neuroradiologic marker.

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