Cerebral strokes in patients with COVID-19

Abstract

The article presents the results of studying the course and outcomes of cerebral strokes in 306 patients with COVID-19 (main group) and 306 patients without the novel coronavirus infection (control group). Compared with the control group, in the group of patients with stroke and the novel coronavirus infection, no significant gender and age differences were found. In both groups, women traditionally predominated (57.2% in the main and 61.8% in the control group) and the age range was 60-89 years (83.0% and 89.4%, respectively). All patients from the comparison groups had premorbid risk factors for the development of stroke: chronic cardiovascular diseases (arterial hypertension, hyperglycemia, arrhythmias, dyslipidemia) and, accordingly, high risks of extracerebral complications and unfavorable outcomes of the disease. It was found that in patients with stroke and COVID-19, severe and extremely severe neurological disorders prevailed (31.7% and 38.9%, respectively). Hemispheric localization of brain lesions prevailed over brainstem and cerebellar, and the course of the disease in 60.1% of cases was complicated by the development of multisegmental pneumonia with a predominance of moderate (34.2%), severe (29.4%) and critical (21.2%) lesions. The above features could have a negative impact on the outcomes of the disease, which was manifested by an increase in mortality in the main group of patients by 2.2 times compared with the control group.