Umbilical artery creatine kinase brain-band isozyme as a predictor of neonatal periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage.

In low-birth-weight neonates, an elevation in the percentage of creatine kinase brain-band isozyme in the umbilical artery was significantly correlated with future development of neonatal grade III and grade IV periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage, when compared with levels in those neonates who did not show periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage or who developed grade I and grade II periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage (p = 0.025). In these neonates the relative levels in maternal venous, umbilical arterial, and umbilical venous samples indicated that the source of the isozyme was fetal.