Paediatric Stroke Research

In addition to being a major health burden for adults, stroke affects up to 400 Australian children each year.

Unfortunately, one in 10 children will not survive a stroke and half of the survivors will have lifelong disability. Reducing the burden of this disease requires a tailored approach.

Our vision

To improve health outcomes of Australian children affected by stroke by narrowing the gap between adults and children in accessing life-changing treatments.

We also aim to understand how and why stroke happens in newborns and to identify predictors of important neurodevelopmental outcomes. This helps us to recognise infants at higher risk sooner and provide targeted interventions more effectively.

Our key priorities

Our group's priorities for optimising outcomes are:

  • Increase access to acute reperfusion therapies that save viable brain by restoring blood flow
  • Better understanding of mechanisms of disease, which informs acute and secondary preventative treatments
  • Build an evidence base for targeted rehabilitation interventions with measurement of outcomes using standardised assessment tools, in children who are ineligible for acute treatments.

It’s not widely known that neonatal stroke affects 120 Australian babies a year. The causes are not well understood, and babies, unfortunately, do not recover well. Almost 50 per cent of these infants experience permanent neurodevelopmental impairments affecting movement, communication, behaviour, learning and cognitive abilities.

Our research

The Paediatric Stroke Research group has five broad areas of focus:

1. Improving accuracy and timeliness of stroke diagnosis in children and increasing access to reperfusion therapies that save viable brain by restoring blood flow to the brain. The Paediatric Stroke Research group has characterised the reasons for diagnostic delays and is:

  • Developing tools to differentiate childhood stroke from mimics, and
  • Using advanced brain imaging techniques which are standard of care in adult stroke, to identify children most likely to benefit from reperfusion therapies.

2. Application of advanced brain scanning techniques in newborns and children with stroke to predict long-term outcomes.

3. International studies to understand risk factors for childhood stroke. The Paediatric Stroke Research group contributes to the International Paediatric Stroke (IPSS) Study, a multi-centre study that aims to understand disease mechanisms and outcomes following childhood stroke. We have participated in two NIH-funded IPSS studies:

  • A study exploring the role of infection in childhood cerebral vasculopathy
  • A study of seizures in paediatric stroke.

4. Epidemiology of childhood stroke: Associate Professor Mark Mackay is an invited childhood stroke expert on the Global Burden of Disease study, which reports the incidence, prevalence and mortality of a range of diseases including stroke.

5. Development of evidence-based paediatric stroke guidelines:

  • The national clinical guideline for The Diagnosis and Acute Management of Childhood Stroke
  • Statewide Victorian Subacute Childhood Stroke Guideline.
  • Our group is currently leading the development of a statewide Victorian Perinatal Stroke Guideline.