Outcome measures used in pediatric stroke studies: a systematic review.

Because no gold-standard outcome measure or measures exist to allow comparison of pediatric stroke study outcomes in clinical trials, we designed a systematic review of the literature to survey the current use of pediatric stroke outcome measures. Studies that used at least 1 standardized measure to assess the outcome of children with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, from full-term newborn to age 18 years, were included. Although 34 studies were included, an additional 36 studies could not be included because ad hoc, author-generated outcome measures were used.