Cord blood neuroglobin in anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy syndrome

Anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy syndrome is frequent in neonates. This syndrome would induced anaerobic metabolism and the synthesis of neuroglobin, protein designated to protect neurons. Our aim was to investigate the relationship among parameters of diagnosis and prognosis of anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy and neuroglobin concentration in neonatal cord blood. This observational, prospective and case-control study took place from April 1, 2017 to April 30, 2018. It involved 51 newborns with anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy and 51 controls. After a clinical examination, we obtained 2 ml of umbilical venous blood sample for the determination of neuroglobin and lactates. Relationships between quantitative and qualitative variables were studied by the ANOVA test. Correlations were derived between lactate and neuroglobin. The threshold of significance was 5%. The amniotic fluid aspect was different between controls and patients (p=0.000). In the control group, the neuroglobin concentration was 3.6±1.2 ng/ml, compared to 4.1±0.8 ng/ml for anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy group (p=0.076). In addition, the lactate concentration was 1157.4±34.0 mg/dl in the control group compared to 1552.7 mg/dl for the anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy group (p=0.005). If the concentration of neuroglobin was related to the appearance of the amniotic fluid (p=0.0107), it was not, however, correlated with the lactate concentration (r=0.037, p=0.737). This study shows that the concentration of neuroglobin in cord blood does not differ between children with anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy and control ones. Therefore, this is not a valuable for the diagnosis of anoxo-ischemic encephalopathy syndrome.