title: The Australian cerebral palsy research study--protocol for a national collaborative study investigating genomic and clinical associations with cerebral palsy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Previous studies have proposed a link between the presence of specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and cerebral palsy and the majority of these associations remain to be confirmed or rejected by prospective studies with sufficient statistical power. Prior studies have also given little attention to the interaction of genomic characteristics and clinical risk factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper describes the design of a prospective case-control study to test these genetic associations in conjunction with more stringent data collection in respect to clinical features associated with pregnancy, particularly maternal infection. Here we consider the ethical requirements, our hypothesis that genetic susceptibility modifies the risk of cerebral palsy in the presence of perinatal environmental triggers, a priori primary and secondary aims, power calculations, participant recruitment strategies, data linkage, sampling methods of genetic material and subsequent SNP analysis, collection of clinical data and the proposed final statistical analysis.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health, Robinson Institute, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. michael.ocallaghan@student.adelaide.edu.au
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: O'Callaghan
authors.forename: Alastair H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: MacLennan
authors.forename: Catherine S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.forename: Gai L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: McMichael
authors.forename: Eric A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Haan
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Broadbent
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Priest
authors.forename: Paul N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Goldwater
authors.forename: Gustaaf A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Dekker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001315:Australia; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004247:DNA; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000235:genetics*; D047928:Premature Birth / Q000235:genetics; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012107:Research Design; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D018746:Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome / Q000235:genetics; D019851:Thrombophilia / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004247:DNA