October 25, 2012 Children can have strokes, and the strokes can
recur, usually within a month, according to pediatric
researchers. Unfortunately, the strokes often go unrecognized
the first time, and the child does not receive treatment before
the recurrence. Pediatric neurologist Rebecca Ichord, MD,
director of the Pediatric Stroke Program at The Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia, reported today on a study of arterial
ischemic stroke in children at the International Stroke
Conference 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. The conference was
sponsored by the American Stroke Association. An arterial
ischemic stroke results from a blockage or constriction in an
artery in or leading to the brain. Ichord and colleagues at The
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia followed 90 children with a
median age of about 6 years old, who were treated for stroke
between 2003 and 2009. Twelve patients (13 percent) had a
recurrent stroke during the study period, most of them within a
month of the first stroke. In six of the 12 children w