Children and adolescents with sickle cell anemia still are not being screened for stroke risk using transcranial Doppler, despite clinical guidelines that strongly recommend annual screening and despite these patients’ frequent health care encounters, according to a report published online April 11 in JAMA Pediatrics.
Approximately 10% of children and adolescents with sickle cell anemia experience stroke before the age of 20 years, unless those at high risk are identified and treated preemptively with blood transfusions, which reduces stroke risk by 92%. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute clinical practice guideline on treating sickle cell disease calls for patients aged 2-16 years to undergo transcranial Doppler every year to detect any elevated velocity of cerebral blood flow, which indicates high stroke risk, said Sarah L. Reeves, Ph.D., of the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her associates.
CDC/Janice Haney Carr
To assess screening rates, the investigators performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of administrative claims data for 4,775 affected children and adolescents treated during a 5-year period in Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, and Texas. This yielded 10,787 person-years of data.
Overall, screening rates increased somewhat across all six states during the study period – from 22% to 44% – but “even the highest rates we report are suboptimal,” Dr. Reeves and her associates noted (JAMA Ped. 2016 Apr 11. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.4859).
This is especially true given that the average patient had 20.0 disease-related outpatient visits, 2.1 disease-related hospitalizations, 3.7 emergency department visits, and 1 well-child visit each year – numerous missed opportunities when they could have been referred for screening.
One way to improve screening rates would be to integrate transcranial Doppler exams into comprehensive sickle-cell healthcare, rather than requiring separate scheduled appointments at imaging facilities, they added.
This study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Dr. Reeves and her associates reported having no relevant financial disclosures.