Silent cerebral infarction, income, and grade retention among students with sickle cell anemia.

Children with sickle cell anemia have a higher-than-expected prevalence of poor educational attainment. We test two key hypotheses about educational attainment among students with sickle cell anemia, as measured by grade retention and use of special education services: (1) lower household per capita income is associated with lower educational attainment; (2) the presence of a silent cerebral infarct is associated with lower educational attainment. We conducted a multicenter, cross-sectional study of cases from 22 U.

Associated risk factors for silent cerebral infarcts in sickle cell anemia: low baseline hemoglobin, sex, and relative high systolic blood pressure.

The most common form of neurologic injury in sickle cell anemia (SCA) is silent cerebral infarction (SCI). In the Silent Cerebral Infarct Multi-Center Clinical Trial, we sought to identify risk factors associated with SCI. In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated the clinical history and baseline laboratory values and performed magnetic resonance imaging of the brain in participants with SCA (HbSS or HbSβ° thalassemia) between the ages of 5 and 15 years with no history of overt stroke or seizures.