Limited data is available on sex differences in young stroke patients describing discrepant findings. This study aims to investigate the sex differences in young stroke patients. Stroke in women dominated in the very young As risk factors only sleep-disordered breathing was more predominant in men in the very young, whereas arterial hypertension, diabetes and atrial fibrillation did not differ in women and men older than 35y.
The higher frequency of stroke in women in the very young may be explained by the sex specific risk factors such as pregnancy, puerperium, the use of oral contraceptives, and hormonal replacement therapy. Stroke severity at presentation, etiology, stroke localization, management, and outcome did not differ between women and men. The main finding of this study is that sex specific risk factors in women may contribute to a large extent to the higher incidence of stroke in the very young in women.
Important modifiable stroke risk factors, such as arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and atrial fibrillation did not differ in women and men, either in the young as well as in the very young. These findings have major implications for primary preventive strategies of stroke in young people. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. It is also one of the most common causes of disability [ 1 ]. The incidence of ischemic stroke among the young is increasing globally [ 3 ]. Despite an overall good prognosis of stroke in young people, there is an important socioeconomic impact [ 3 , 4 ]. Sex differences in stroke are well known, in that women are older at their first stroke and suffer poorer outcome [ 5 ]. However, only a few studies have addressed the sex differences of stroke in young.
Only a few studies addressed the difference in the risk factors among both the sexes. Arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and smoking seem to be more prevalent in men while low physical activity and high body mass index BMI are more prevalent in women [ 7 , 9 ].
