Sickle Cell Causes " Silent Strokes " In Children (673 hits)
(BlackDoctor.org) – It is estimated that sickle cell disease occurs among about 1 out of every 500 African-American births. Children with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder, who also have high blood pressure and/or anemia are at increased risk for so-called "silent strokes," according to a new study.
Silent strokes, which cause no symptoms, "are typically seen in older adults, and these findings give us additional insight into why they tend to occur so often in children with sickle cell disease.
Researchers performed MRI brain scans on 814 children with sickle cell disease, aged 5 to 15, and found that 31 percent of them had suffered silent strokes. None of the children had a history of strokes or seizures, and none showed any signs of stroke at the time of the study.
After examining the children's medical histories, it was concluded that anemia and high blood pressure individually increased the risk of silent stroke in the study participants, but the combination of the two carried the highest risk.
Among these sickle cell patients, those with the highest systolic blood pressure (the top number in their blood pressure reading) was above 113 and the lowest hemoglobin (below 7.6 grams per deciliter) had a nearly four times greater risk of silent stroke than those with the lowest blood pressure and highest hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Anemia is defined by low levels of hemoglobin.
Compared to children with the lowest blood pressure readings, those with the highest blood pressure had a 1.7 times greater risk of silent stroke. And the risk was more than doubled for kids with the lowest hemoglobin levels versus kids with the highest hemoglobin levels, the investigators found.
