Abstract: Objective To study the characteristics of cerebral glucose metabolism in adults with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) using positron emission tomography (PET) and statistical parameter mapping (SPM), and evaluate the degree of the cerebral glucose metabolism damaged. Methods 26 HIE patients and 20 healthy controls received 18F-FDG PET imaging. The scope and degree of the brain radioactivity decrease were observed with visual analysis. The three-dimensional projection images and the KE value were obtained by SPM analysis. Results The glucose metabolic decrease in HIE was primarily bilaterally. The bilateral basal ganglia and thalamus metabolism decreased most obviously. The brain cortical lobes varied degrees of metabolic decrease according to the order from high to low was the frontal, occipital, parietal and temporal lobes. The basal ganglia and thalamus were taken as the important target area of the evaluation of damage degree, the degree of damage of HIE was divided into Level Ⅰ(mild), Level Ⅱ(moderate) and Level Ⅲ (severe) combined with cortex damage. Conclusion The basal ganglia and thalamus are the target areas of metabolic damage, the classification combined with brain cortex damage degree and scope can be used to guide the clinical treatment and prognosis evaluation.

Key words: hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, positron emission tomography, fluorodeoxyglucose, statistical parameter mapping