Researchers have discovered yet another way that vaccines save children's lives - pediatric vaccines can prevent the likelihood of children suffering from pediatric stroke.
A new study, which gathered and analyzed data from 40 different centers in 5 continents, interviewed the parents or guardians of about 600 children aged from 7.5 years to 8 years. Of the 600, 310 children have already had a stroke while 289 children hadn't.
The study, called Vascular Effects of Infection in Pediatric Stroke, found that children who had some, few or no routine vaccinations were 6.7 times more prone to suffering from ischemic stroke, compared to those receiving all or most vaccines.
Risk of stroke in children are often increased by the incidence of arterial disease, cardiac disorders, infection, head and neck disorders, and abnormal blood clotting, among others. Other risk factors to pediatric stroke are high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and cholesterol-related disorders.
Pediatric strokes affect only about five out of every 100,000, or about 5,000 pediatric strokes a year in the U.S.. About half of these strokes are caused by blood clots, a known risk factor in pediatric stroke.
The study has also found that those children who had common infections such as colds and other upper respiratory infections within the past week were six times more likely to have a stroke. In the week prior to the study, there was an 8 percent incidence of common infections in the stroke patients and 2.4 percent in the non-stroke patients linked to more than six times the risk of stroke. Other minor infections in the week prior to the study were reported in 17 percent in the stroke patients and 3 percent in the non-stroke patients.
The children studied have been given routine vaccinations, including those against polio, measles, mumps, rubella and pneumococcus. However, researchers have explained that missed or incomplete vaccinations per se do not lead to pediatric stroke. Instead, infections act as trigger for stroke in those children who are already at risk for stroke.
"The protective association of routine vaccination against childhood stroke provides a widely available means of prevention, and this information can easily be dispersed by pediatric healthcare providers," said lead researcher Nancy Hills, Ph.D., M.B.A., and assistant professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.
Parents have been enjoined to be extra vigilant in following the vaccination schedule of their children, and were also advised to watch out for signs of stroke in children, such as sudden weakness of numbness on just one side of the face or body, sudden difficulty in speaking and walking, dizziness, confusion, and sudden severe headache. Young children can also have seizures during a stroke.
The study is yet to be published online, but it has been presented in abstract form at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in San Diego.
