Congenital syphilis: unique clinical presentation in three preterm newborns.

Three preterm newborns affected by congenital syphilis, born to mothers not adequately treated during pregnancy, are described. The clinical picture is characterized by a severe cholestatic hepatopathy and, in the two surviving patients, by an unusually wide ischemic-hemorrhagic lesion of the cerebral parenchyma. This lesion is probably due to a syphilitic endarteritis, and has rarely been described before in preterm infants.