Neurodevelopmental follow-up of children of women infected with varicella during pregnancy: a prospective study

BACKGROUND.The fetal varicella syndrome is associated with abnormal central nervous system development, which in many cases is associated with mental retardation. However, the incidence of neurobehavioral deficits in asymptomatic structurally normal children whose mothers had clinically diagnosed va...

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Published in:	The Pediatric infectious disease journal Vol. 22; no. 9; pp. 819 - 823
Main Authors:	MATTSON, SARAH N, JONES, KENNETH LYONS, GRAMLING, LAURA J, SCHONFELD, AMY M, RILEY, EDWARD P, HARRIS, JOHN A, CHAMBERS, CHRISTINA D
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Baltimore, MD Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc 01-09-2003 Philadelphia, PA Lippincott Hagerstown, MD
Subjects:	Adolescent Analysis of Variance Biological and medical sciences Case-Control Studies Chickenpox - diagnosis Chickenpox - transmission Child Child, Preschool Cognition Disorders - epidemiology Cognition Disorders - etiology Developmental Disabilities - epidemiology Developmental Disabilities - etiology Female Follow-Up Studies Human viral diseases Humans Incidence Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical Infectious diseases Medical sciences Multivariate Analysis Nervous System Diseases - epidemiology Nervous System Diseases - etiology Neuropsychological Tests Pregnancy Pregnancy Complications, Infectious - diagnosis Probability Prospective Studies Risk Assessment Viral diseases Viral diseases with cutaneous or mucosal lesions and viral diseases of the eye Skin disease Prognosis Alphaherpesvirinae Central nervous system Developmental disorder Asymptomatic Epidemiology Mental retardation Incidence Prevention Prenatal prenatal exposure Mother neurodevelopment Varicella Female Diagnosis Teratogen Woman Child Age Human Varicella zoster virus Herpesviridae Method Infection Virus Pregnancy Viral disease Intellectual deficiency
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Summary:	BACKGROUND.The fetal varicella syndrome is associated with abnormal central nervous system development, which in many cases is associated with mental retardation. However, the incidence of neurobehavioral deficits in asymptomatic structurally normal children whose mothers had clinically diagnosed varicella-zoster virus infection is unknown. METHODS.Neurobehavioral outcome was evaluated in 84 children born to women infected with varicella during pregnancy and 40 children born to women who were not infected with varicella during pregnancy. Children were 3 to 15 years of age at the time of testing. Clinical features of the fetal varicella syndrome were present in only 1 of the 84 children in the varicella group. These sample sizes provide statistical power of 0.80 (alpha = 0.05) to detect group differences of 0.54 sd (the equivalent of 8.1 IQ points). RESULTS.No differences were found in the test performance of the two groups. In addition, within the varicella sample, no meaningful differences were found relative to infection-related hyperthermia or the timing of infection. CONCLUSIONS.As a group, the children born to women infected with varicella-zoster virus during pregnancy and who do not have structural features characteristic of the fetal varicella syndrome are not neurodevelopmentally different from unexposed, uninfected control children.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0891-3668 1532-0987
DOI:	10.1097/01.inf.0000086402.18710.54