Pediatric Ischemic Stroke: An Infrequent Complication of SARS-CoV-2.

OBJECTIVE: Severe complications of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) include arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) in adults and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. Whether stroke is a frequent complication of pediatric SARS-CoV-2 is unknown. This study aimed to determine the proportion of pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases with ischemic stroke and the proportion of incident pediatric strokes with SARS-CoV-2 in the first 3 months of the pandemic in an international cohort. METHODS: We surveyed 61 international sites with pediatric stroke expertise. Survey questions included: numbers of hospitalized pediatric (≤ 18 years) patients with SARS-CoV-2; numbers of incident neonatal and childhood ischemic strokes; frequency of SARS-CoV-2 testing for pediatric patients with stroke; and numbers of stroke cases positive for SARS-CoV-2 from March 1 to May 31, 2020. RESULTS: Of 42 centers with SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization numbers, 8 of 971 (0.82%) pediatric patients with SARS-CoV-2 had ischemic strokes. Proportions of stroke cases positive for SARS-CoV-2 from March to May 2020 were: 1 of 108 with neonatal AIS (0.9%), 0 of 33 with neonatal cerebral sinovenous thrombosis (CSVT; 0%), 6 of 166 with childhood AIS (3.6%), and 1 of 54 with childhood CSVT (1.9%). However, only 30.5% of neonates and 60% of children with strokes were tested for SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, these proportions represent 2.9, 0, 6.1, and 3.0% of stroke cases tested for SARS-CoV-2. Seven of 8 patients with SARS-CoV-2 had additional established stroke risk factors. INTERPRETATION: As in adults, pediatric stroke is an infrequent complication of SARS-CoV-2, and SARS-CoV-2 was detected in only 4.6% of pediatric patients with ischemic stroke tested for the virus. However, < 50% of strokes were tested. To understand the role of SARS-CoV-2 in pediatric stroke better, SARS-CoV-2 testing should be considered in pediatric patients with stroke as the pandemic continues. ANN NEUROL 2021;89:657-665.

Trajectories of Behavioural Disturbances Across Dementia Types.

OBJECTIVE: To replicate a previous finding that the trajectory of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) shifts in the sixth year of behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). We evaluated longitudinal tracking with both the Frontal Behavioural Inventory (FBI) and NPI, comparing bvFTD against other dementias. METHODS: Chart reviews over two to five years for patients with bvFTD (n=30), primary progressive aphasia (PPA, n=13) and Alzheimer's disease (AD, n=118) at an urban Canadian tertiary clinic specializing in dementia. Linear regressions of the longitudinal data tested predictors of annualized rates of change (ROC) in NPI and FBI total and subscales for apathy and disinhibition among dementia groups. RESULTS: The mode of the overall sample for the most advanced duration of illness observed was 5 years, with the median at 7 years. We did not find a crescendo-decrescendo pattern in scores although, for bvFTD and AD, high initial scores correlated with ensuing downward ROCs on the NPI and FBI. Educational level showed an influence on disinhibition ROCs. The FBI was no more revealing than the NPI for apathy and disinhibition scores in these dementias. CONCLUSIONS: A cognitive reserve effect on behavioural disturbance was supported but it may take longer than our 4 years of observing the clinical sample to record inflection points in the behavioural and psychiatric symptoms seen in bvFTD. The current data only imply that both apathy and disinhibition will diminish over the course of dementia.