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Difficulties Diagnosing Childhood Stroke

Program: Diagnosing and Treating Pediatric Stroke
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Andrew Schorr:

Dr. Fullerton, you as a pediatric neurologist I know helped lead a team of specialists there at UCSF, and often, I mean, these kids could have this problem anywhere of course in the country or the world, and people come from far and wide to see you. Why is it so difficult to understand what's going on? What is it about diagnosing these problems that is so elusive?

Dr. Fullerton:

I think one problem is that childhood stroke has generally fallen into a gap in clinical care. It is a rare disorder in general, and so most child neurologists will not be very comfortable in caring for children with stroke. Stroke is considered more a disease of adults, but then adult stroke neurologists aren't familiar of the etiologies of stroke in children or how to manage stroke in children, and so they're often uncomfortable with caring for a stroke in a child, and so that's why it's become increasingly important over time, especially as we have different treatment options we can offer to children, it's important that these children do get input from people who are comfortable taking care of childhood stroke patients in particular. It can be difficult to diagnose the etiology of their strokes. It often takes sophisticated imaging studies and studies that are done by very experienced practitioners, and so experienced neuroradiologists, experienced neurointerventional radiologists. It really often does take a team approach to figure out why a child has had a stroke and figure out what is the best way to prevent more strokes in that child.

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