Arterial ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke in Chinese children: a retrospective analysis.

Abstract To study the characteristics of pediatric arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) and hemorrhagic stroke (HS) in southwest of China, and analyze the etiology and risk factor. This study retrospectively reviewed the records of all patients in both department of neurology and department of neurosurgery in Children’s hospital of Chongqing medical university from January 2003 to March 2011, and patients were eligible for analysis if they had been diagnosed with AIS or HS. And SPSS 17.0 software was used for statistical analysis. The χ 2 test was used to exam relationships between stroke types and sex, age, and that between neuroradiological images and sex. 119 Boys (70.4%) and 50 girls (29.6%) were included. In these cases, HS accounted for the majority of the cases ( n  = 109, 64.1%), and vitamin K deficiency was a major etiology in 65 out of 109 HS (59.6%), most of which occurred in breastfeeding infants (87.7%) and those who received no vitamin K after birth. AIS accounted for 35.3% of the cases, and minor head injury associated stroke (40.0%) was more common than vasculopathy associated stroke (16.6%) and other kinds of stroke. HS in children is more common than AIS. Vitamin K deficiency was a major etiology in these young infants who experienced HS, and many cases of AIS were associated with minor head injury.