[Cerebrovascular risk factors seen in a university hospital].

INTRODUCTION Risk factors (RF) in pediatric stroke differ from those of adults, and they include a wide range of diseases such as heart disease, infections, leukemias, and inborn errors of metabolism. OBJECTIVES To describe RF for ischemic stroke in a pediatric population, and to examine the relationship of RF with age, sex and type of stroke. PATIENTS AND METHODS An analysis was made of database of 114 children and adolescents with ischemic stroke from January 2003 to July 2012. Risk factors were stratified into 6 categories and ischemic strokes were classified as arterial and venous. We compared the RF with age, sex, and type of stroke (chi2 and OR). RESULTS The median age was 2.5 years, with 74 (62.2%) males. No RF was identified in 7.9% of patients, and 67% had more than one RF. The most common RF were acute systemic diseases (56.1%), heart disease (35.1%), and chronic systemic diseases (29.8%). There was a statistically significant association between acute systemic disease and age less than 5 years (P<.001), and between chronic systemic disease and age 5 years or more (P<.02). The RF of heart disease was associated with arterial infarction (P<.05), and the acute head and neck disease RF was associated with venous infarction (P<.05). CONCLUSIONS The RF for ischemic stroke are multiple in the pediatric population, and some of them are associated with a specific age and type of stroke. The detection of these factors may help in the primary prevention of people at risk, an early diagnosis, and treatment and prevention of recurrences.