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Risk factors and blood biomarker profiles of children diagnosed with cerebral palsy in a Danish cohort of preterm newborns
Journal article   Open access

Risk factors and blood biomarker profiles of children diagnosed with cerebral palsy in a Danish cohort of preterm newborns

Man-Hung E. Tang, Ulrik Lausten-Thomsen, Marc Stegger, Kristin Skogstrand and Nis Borbye-Lorenzen
Early Human Development, Vol.221, 106602
2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2026.106602
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Open Access CC BY V4.0

Abstract

Inflammation Neurotrophic factors Infant Premature Digital health registry Dried blood spots
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a complex disease encompassing a broad range of neurological dysfunctions in children, caused by an early, non-progressive brain injury. While the quality of healthcare for children with CP has formidably improved, the full etiology of the disease has not yet been fully uncovered, and a biological signature of the disease remains incompletely characterized. Using the CODIBINE cohort, an observational study of Danish preterm newborns linking curated health registry data with protein biomarkers measured in blood collected shortly after birth including inflammatory, cell stress and neurotrophic factors, we systematically explored the landscape of possible risk factors associated with CP. Our findings support previous knowledge linking CP with extreme prematurity, low body size metrics, poor APGAR scores and uncover elevated levels of the cell stress marker heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70), previously linked with mitigation of brain injury. We also demonstrate that protein biomarkers for inflammation, cell stress and neurotrophic markers all change significantly across gestational age, highlighting the importance of accounting for gestational age when working with neonatal protein biomarkers. Better understanding of the multimodal traits of the disease may contribute to a finer description of the different subtypes of CP and facilitate early detection and intervention.

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