Turkish Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases, cilt.28, sa.1, ss.23-30, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
INTRODUCTION: The clinical presentation of COVID-19 varies greatly. Even though, disease cause predominantly respiratory manifestations, because of the inflammatory nature of the disease, it also triggers thromboembolic conditions. We aim to describe the features of COVID-19 positive ischemic stroke patients of 1-year experiences of a single center.
METHODS: A total of 258 patients, diagnosed with ischemic cerebrovascular disease (25 patients of with strokes had respiratory symptoms at initial presentation and COVID-19 diagnosis), were evaluated retrospectively during the study period.
RESULTS: A majority of these patients strokes were in anterior circulation territory and most of them were large vessel occlusion. Eighteen of the patients had positive COVID-19 RT-PCR results, while 7 of the patients had negative results but their thorax CTs made the diagnosis of COVID-19. Hypertension (56%), diabetes (44%), and atrial fibrillation (44%) were the most comorbidities. Thirteen patients stroke etiology was cardioembolism, 9 had atherosclerosis. Fourteen of the patients NIHSS were >10, and 13 of them died. Patients with high levels of CRP (13/25), D-Dimer (15/25) and Ferritin (14/25) had mRS>3 at admission. Most of the patients (19/ 25) had CO- RADS 5 scores at admission. Two patients had mRS 4-5, 9 patients had mRS 0-3 at the discharge period. Fourteen patients died at the hospital period.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The admission NIHSS scores determined significantly the prognosis. Moreover, higher age, women gender, LVO in neuroimagining, high CRP, Ferritin, D-dimer levels, COVID-19 RT-PCR positivity, presence of hypertension and atrial fibrillation comorbidities showed poor outcome.