Ten-year trends in infant neuroimaging from US Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

To identify patterns of neuroimaging (NI), including cranial ultrasounds (CUS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), among a large cohort of United States NICU infants. The retrospective cohort study of the Pediatrix Clinical Data Warehouse for infants discharged between 2008 and 2017. From the 863,863 infants during the study period, 204,197 (24%) had at least one NI study. CUS was the most common study (n = 189,190, 22%) followed by MRI (n = 37,107, 4%). From 2008 to 2017, the percentage of infants who underwent any NI decreased from 28 to 21% (p < 0.001) driven primarily by a reduction in CUS. MRI use for infants ≤33 weeks increased through 2015 and then decreased. Overall reductions in NI have been driven by decreased use of CUS in infants born at 31–33 weeks’ gestational age. MRI use among preterm infants has been more dynamic with an initial rise and recent decrease.