Stroke risk is almost eight times higher in COVID-19 patients – Sun Nigeria

Man According to a recently published study at JAMA Neurology, COVID-19 is about eight times more likely to experience stroke during illness than influenza patients. This finding suggests that COVID-a study, if possible, could enable patients to receive prompt treatment to reduce the risk of stroke-related long-term disability, such as loss of movement and aphasia control. Authors have revealed.

This finding also highlights how serious COVID-19 is over seasonal flu.

“The overall rate of stroke in patients with COVID-19 was lower, but significantly higher than in those with influenza. One of the study’s authors, Dr Neal Parikh, a neurologist at Cornell University. “Basically, our results support the idea that COVID-19 infections are more severe than influenza infections,” he said.

Research details

This is not the first study to associate COVID-19 with an increased risk of stroke. However, previous reports of such relationships lacked appropriate control groups. Current research is designed to overcome that problem. In this study, Parik and his colleagues compared data collected from two patient groups treated at two New York City hospitals. One group consisted of 1,916 laboratory-confirmed patients with COVID-19, who were treated or admitted to the emergency department from March 4, 2020 to May 2, 2020. The other group was hospitalized between January 2016 and May 2018 for influenza patients who were identified in a test of 1,916 patients in the “control”.

Of COVID-19 patients, 31 (1.6%) had a stroke. By comparison, 3 of the influenza patients (0.2%) had a stroke. After adjusting for other factors associated with increased risk of stroke, such as age, gender, and race, researchers found that people with COVID-19 were 7.6 times more likely to have a stroke than people with influenza. I calculated.

All strokes in the study were the most common type of ischemic stroke. Ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel to the brain. (The other type of stroke, hemorrhagic, occurs when a weakened blood vessel in the brain ruptures.)

The age of COVID-19 patients with stroke ranged from 66 to 78. The length of time between their onset of COVID-19 symptoms and stroke varied from 5 to 28 days. More than one-third of them had severe cases of COVID-19 and were on mechanical ventilation.

Limitations and implications

This research needs attention. First, as Parikh and his colleagues point out, the study may be too unstable to diagnose brain stroke in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, so the study You may have underestimated the true rate of strokes), or you may have died before you arrived at the hospital. On the other hand, the stroke rate of patients with COVID-19 may be overestimated in the study, as infected patients admitted to hospitals in March and April, when the number of cases in the city is increasing rapidly, are more severe than patients. I was hospitalized with influenza in recent years. As Parikh and his coauthors discuss in their paper, there is a valid reason that people with COVID-19 may be at higher risk of stroke than people with influenza. They say that acute viral infections, including for example influenza, are known to provoke an inflammatory response in the body that can lead to blockage of blood vessels. COVID-19 can cause a particularly severe inflammatory response with potentially dangerous consequences.

COVID-19 also tends to be a more severe respiratory disease than influenza, on average, placing more demands on the cardiovascular system with consequent complications that make stroke more likely.

COVID-19, a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, normally attacks the lungs. It causes symptoms such as coughing and dyspnea, but doctors are aware of anxiety.

Young people at the age of 30 experience a stroke with mild symptoms. Young patients without the risk factors for stroke may be at increased risk if they have COVID-19, whether they are symptomatic or not.

Coronavirus has been shown to cause the development of microthrombus [small clots].. These clots travel to the lungs and block blood flow to the lungs. This is called pulmonary embolism and travels into the cerebral circulation to cause ischemic stroke.

How COVID-19 causes stroke

A recently published study found that COVID-19 and other diseases that cause severe inflammation throughout the body may increase the risk of fat plaque buildup and vascular rupture. This can lead to stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.

COVID-19, which is usually considered a pulmonary infection, has been shown to cause blood clots, which can cause severe stroke. According to experts, this can occur in patients with little or no symptoms, regardless of age.

Concerns about getting sick can delay the treatment of stroke, but studies suggest that the diagnosis of COVID-19 should not prevent physicians from using life-saving measures.

• Source: healthline.com