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February 26, 2014
Stimulants for ADHD Don’t Raise Stroke Risk in
Children, Teenagers

San Diego, CA—Stimulants have been linked to higher risks of stroke in adults, raising questions about the safety of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications prescribed to children.

A large retrospective cohort study, presented recently at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2014 in San Diego, found no significant associations, however, between stroke and pediatric use of ADHD stimulants over 14 years.

The researchers from the University of California San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Northern California point out that their case control study “rigorously” identified pediatric stroke outcomes over a long period of time in contrast to earlier investigations that limited how stroke was identified.

For the investigation, which looked at outcomes for 2.5 million 2- to 19-year-olds, researchers compared stimulant medication usage in children diagnosed with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke to stimulant usage in another group of children without stroke.

Study subjects were all enrolled in a large integrated health plan from 1993 and 2007. Radiology reports were used to identify hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke in children 2-years-old or older. Electronic pharmaceutical records were employed to collect data on ADHD medications prior to stroke.

With 258 cases and 1,030 controls identified, no measured exposures significantly differed between the two groups in adjusted analyses, the authors note.

The growing number of children taking stimulants to treat ADHD makes the study especially significant.

Researchers from the CDC reported late last year that in excess of 3.5 million children in the U.S. are taking ADHD medications, a 28% increase from 2003-2004 to 2011-2012.

That represents 6% of 4- to 17-year-olds, according to the CDC study. By the time American children reach high school age, nearly one in five boys and one in 11 girls have been diagnosed with ADHD by a healthcare provider, according to the study, which was based on parental reports.




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