Stroke risk far higher with COVID-19 than influenza, says study
Patients hospitalised with COVID-19 have almost eight-fold higher odds of experiencing an ischaemic stroke than patients hospitalised with influenza, a study suggests.
In a retrospective study, US neurologists drew data from two teaching hospitals in New York City on adults (median age 64) presenting at the ED or hospitalised with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 between March and May this year.
They compared their rate of stroke with patients (median age 62) presenting at the same hospitals who were diagnosed with laboratory-confirmed influenza over five months in 2018.
Among 1916 patients with coronavirus, 31 (1.6%) had an acute ischaemic stroke, although stroke was the presenting complaint in only eight of the cases. Most had presented with dyspoea/hypoxia, cough and/or fever.
