title: [Ischemic stroke in the young adult].
abstract: Ischemic stroke is not rare in young adults since one in ten stroke patients are less than 50 years old. This incidence increased over the past last years, mainly due to the rise in the prevalence of traditional vascular risk factors in this sub-group of age but also of illegal drug use. Even though both survival and functional outcome of young stroke patients are better than those observed in older patients, socio-economic and quality of life consequences make this disease a main objective in terms of primary and secondary prevention. Identifying the cause of ischemic stroke in young adults is of major importance to prevent stroke recurrence. However, given the wide variety of potential underlying causes, the etiologic work-up of stroke in young adults requires a different approach from that in the elderly. In this context, a sequential diagnostic work-up is needed in order to optimize the yield of diagnostic tests, to reduce their cost and risks for the patient. Arterial dissection is the most frequent cause of stroke in young adults but other less frequent causes are numerous. Despite a comprehensive work-up, about one third of cases remains unexplained leading to the diagnosis of cryptogenic ischemic stroke.
authors.affiliation: Service de neurologie et unité neurovasculaire, UMR 894, centre de psychiatrie et neurosciences INSERM, université Paris Descartes, centre hospitalier Sainte-Anne, 75674 Paris cedex 14, France. Electronic address: d.calvet@ch-sainte-anne.fr.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Calvet
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life; D012307:Risk Factors; D020521:Stroke / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Arterial dissection; Bilan hiérarchisé; Comprehensive work-up; Dissection artérielle; Infarctus cérébral; Ischemic stroke; Sujet jeune; Young adult