Response to Letter Regarding Article, “Mutations of the GLA Gene in Young Patients With Stroke: The PORTYSTROKE Study—Screening Genetic Conditions in PORTuguese Young STROKE Patients”

Abstract

Response: We thank Lidove et al1 for their letter. We appreciate their effort of putting together data from different studies on screening of Fabry disease (FD) in stroke patients. Although studies differ in several aspects (including, among others, population enrolled, type of stroke, and screening methods), therefore questioning their analyses as a whole, increasing the number of patients may afford more robust data. Nevertheless, we think that the authors' interpretation of published data may be misleading, because there seems to exist 2 different issues under the same heading. We agree that the prevalence of FD in stroke patients is, probably, low. However, when we ask what is the role of FD or, more precisely, of GLA gene mutations in stroke, the answer is not straightforward. The PORTYSTROKE study included patients with different types of stroke, not only ischemic and hemorrhagic but also cerebral venous thrombosis. …