Abstract
Background: Over 2 million people under age 50 are seen in a U.S. emergency room monthly for non-fatal injuries. Our objective was to measure ischemic stroke incidence after traumatic injury in young patients and identify stroke risk factors. Methods: We performed a population-based study of ischemic stroke after trauma among people <50 years old in a Northern Californian integrated health care system. We electronically identified a cohort of patients with diagnostic codes for trauma (ICD-9 800-959.9) in emergency and inpatient encounters from 1997-2011, then identified ischemic stroke outcomes within 4 weeks. To determine stroke, we required an ICD-9 stroke code (433-438) plus a radiology report of brain imaging containing a keyword: stroke, infarct#, thromb#, ischemi#, lacun#, or dissect#. A neurologist reviewed the reports to exclude those inconsistent with ischemic stroke. We obtained clinical data such as injury type from electronic databases to calculate stratified incidence rates and risk ratios. Results: From 1.5 million trauma encounters, we identified 197 ischemic strokes. The 4-week stroke incidence after any traumatic injury was 0.013% (95% CI 0.011, 0.015). Patients with stroke had a mean age of 37.7 years (SD 12.2) versus 24.0 years (SD 13.8) in those without stroke (P<0.0001). Patients with injury to the head or neck were more likely to have a stroke compared to those with other types of injuries (Table). The 4-week stroke incidence after head or neck injury was 0.07% (95% CI 0.05, 0.09) among adults and 0.005% (95% CI 0.001, 0.01) among children (P<0.0001). Of the 197 stroke cases, 16% (95% CI 11, 22) had a diagnostic code for cranio-cervical dissection. Conclusions: A 4-week stroke incidence of 0.013% suggests that 260 young people have an ischemic stroke after a traumatic injury every month in the U.S. Further research is needed to identify the highest risk groups, such as those with head or neck injury, and opportunities for stroke prevention.
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