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Third-trimester fetuses with opioid exposure in utero have smaller brain size on MRI
According to an open-access Editor's Choice article in ARRS's American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), third-trimester fetuses with opioid exposure in utero showed multiple minor 2D brain biometric measurements as well as altered fetal physiology on examination MRI. Given the lack of imaging literature assessing prenatal opioid exposure on brain development, "our results demonstrate the influence of prenatal opioid exposure on fetal brain development, which in turn may impact postnatal clinical outcomes," wrote lead author Usha D. Nagaraj, MD, of Cincinnati Medical Center Children's Hospital of Ohio. The prospective multicenter case-control study by Nagaraj and colleagues included...
Third-trimester fetuses with opioid exposure in utero have smaller brain size on MRI
According to an open-access Editor's Choice article in ARRS's American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), third-trimester fetuses with opioid exposure in utero showed multiple minor 2D brain biometric measurements as well as altered fetal physiology on examination MRI.
Given the lack of imaging literature assessing prenatal opioid exposure on brain development, "our results demonstrate the influence of prenatal opioid exposure on fetal brain development, which in turn may impact postnatal clinical outcomes," wrote lead author Usha D. Nagaraj, MD, of Cincinnati Medical Center Children's Hospital of Ohio.
The prospective multicenter case-control study by Nagaraj and colleagues included 65 women (mean age 29 years) in the third trimester of pregnancy who underwent fetal MRI from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021 at three academic medical centers in the United States: Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Arkansas Children's Hospital and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A total of 28 fetuses (average gestational age 32.3 weeks)
were classified as opioid-exposed, while 37 fetuses (mean gestational age 31.9 weeks) were unexposed in utero. Fourteen 2D biometric measurements of the fetal brain were manually evaluated and used to derive four indices.
Taking into account gestational age, fetal sex and nicotine exposure, 7 of the 14 2D biometric measurements were obtained: cerebral fronto-occipital diameter, biparietal bone diameter, biparietal brain diameter, corpus callosum length, vermis height, anterior-posterior pons measurement and the transverse Cerebellar diameter was significantly smaller in opioid-exposed fetuses than in unexposed fetuses as measured on fetal MRI.
“In addition,” the authors of this AJR article concluded, “fetuses with prenatal opioid exposure had an increased frequency of breech presentation and increased amniotic fluid volume.”
Source:
Reference:
Nagaraj, U.D., et al. (2022) MRI findings in third trimester opioid-exposed fetuses with emphasis on brain measurements: A prospective multicenter case-control study. American Journal of Roentgenology. doi.org/10.2214/AJR.22.28357.