Cerebral Palsy Risk Increased When E4 Allele Gene is Present
Researchers determined that children are more likely to develop cerebral palsy following injury to the developing brain when E4 allele of the Apolipoprotein E, or APOE, gene is present.
To conduct this study, researchers at Children's Memorial Research Center compared the APOE gene in 209 children with cerebral palsy to healthy children of the same gender, race and ethnicity. They found that young children with the E4 allele who suffer a brain injury are more susceptible to developing cerebral palsy.
"The gene isn't causing the cerebral palsy. It's making you at greater risk to develop it, but another injury is needed." said Mark Wainwright, professor of pediatric neurology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
The overall population has two of the three alleles of the APOE gene, which produces the E4 protein in the brain. The protein is involved in neural repair, but E4 creates a protein that is less able to regulate brain inflammation following an injury. Children with E4 are more likely to have brain damage following an injury and are less capable of repairing it, just as adults who carry the E4 form of the APOE gene may be more susceptible to developing Alzheimer's disease and have worse outcome after brain injury, including stroke and head injury.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, may benefit children who are at risk for poor neurodevelopmental outcome after brain injury as newborns and thus target those children for early therapeutic intervention.
Unfortunately, I believe the possible candidates for early intervention may be greatly reduced if the child suffered hypoxia (lack of oxygen at birth) or other preventable injuries due to the fact that the doctor may have been at fault and not want to accept the responsibility/liability. By stating that the child suffered an injury at birth and recommending the child for early intervention the doctor will inevitably be opening the door to questions from the parents about what caused the injury. If however, he/she remains silent the injury will most likely not be discovered for several years, if at all, as most instances of medical malpractice go undetected.
