12-year-old boy in Hanoi suffers stroke after doing homework

On March 6, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Hong Duc, Head of the Department of Cardiovascular Diagnostic Imaging and Intervention, Xanh Pon General Hospital (Hanoi) said that the unit had just intervened for a 12-year-old patient (residing in Ba Vi, Hanoi) who suffered a brain hemorrhage.

Previously, on March 5, after doing homework, the child had a headache. The child's father went to the pharmacy to buy painkillers. However, the child's condition worsened, with severe headache, nausea, and profuse sweating, so he was taken to the hospital.

At the lower level hospital, the child's health did not improve so he was transferred to Xanh Pon General Hospital. Associate Professor Duc said that the child was admitted to the hospital in a coma. Through a CT scan with contrast injection, doctors determined that the child had a ruptured cerebral blood vessel due to a congenital cerebral arteriovenous malformation.

Immediately, the doctors recommended a complete embolization intervention under the guidance of digital subtraction angiography (DSA). This method helps eliminate the risk of recurrent blood vessel rupture that aggravates the injury. After the intervention, the child was closely monitored.

According to Dr. Duc, in adults, stroke occurs mainly due to diseases such as cerebral atherosclerosis, atrial fibrillation, and ruptured aneurysm, while in children, it is due to cerebral vascular malformations. This is a congenital disease and can only be detected by a brain CT scan.

Typical symptoms of vascular malformations are severe headaches, epilepsy, seizures, vomiting, nausea, difficulty speaking, inability to speak, high blood pressure, lethargy, even coma, hemiplegia...

The most common and dangerous complication of cerebral vascular malformations is cerebral hemorrhage, which can be fatal if not detected and treated promptly.

Doctor Duc recommends that in case a child has a headache or epilepsy, they should go to the doctor and have a CT scan or MRI of the brain. If a brain vascular malformation is determined, the doctor will assess the extent of the damage and then come up with the best treatment plan to prevent blood vessel rupture and hemorrhage.