Ischaemic stroke in the time of coronavirus disease 2019
- 1 September 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in European Journal of Neurology
- Vol. 27 (9), 1788-1792
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ene.14327
Abstract
Background and purpose Stroke assistance is facing changes and new challenges since COVID-19 became pandemic. A variation on the patient influx might be one of the greater concerns, due to fewer people coming to emergency departments or coming too late. However, no data quantifying this have been published until now. The aim was to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak on hospital stroke admissions and their characteristics in our region. Methods The data of every patient admitted to any hospital of our healthcare system with a diagnosis of ischaemic stroke between 30 December 2019 and 19 April 2020 were reviewed. Demographic and clinical data were recorded and compared between periods before and after the setting of the state of emergency secondary to the COVID-19 outbreak. Results In total, 354 patients with ischaemic stroke were admitted in our study period. There was a weekly average of 27.5 cases before the setting of the state of emergency against 12 afterwards (P < 0.001). This drop in stroke cases occurred progressively from week 11, persisting in time despite the decrease in confirmed cases of COVID-19. No differences in the proportion of intravenous thrombolysis (21.1% vs. 21.5%,P = 0.935) or endovascular therapy (12.4% vs. 15.2%,P = 0.510) were found, nor in other demographic or clinical characteristics except for median onset-to-door time (102 vs. 183 min,P = 0.015). Conclusions This observational study offers the perspective of a whole region in one of the countries more heavily stricken by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and shows that the decrease of stroke events, since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, happened globally and without any specific patient distribution.This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Covid-19 — Navigating the UnchartedThe New England Journal of Medicine, 2020
- Guidelines for the Early Management of Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke: 2019 Update to the 2018 Guidelines for the Early Management of Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Guideline for Healthcare Professionals From the American Heart Association/American Stroke AssociationStroke, 2019
- Seasonal variation in the occurrence of ischemic stroke: A meta-analysisEnvironmental Geochemistry and Health, 2019
- Seasonal Variations in Neurological Severity and Outcomes of Ischemic Stroke ― 5-Year Single-Center Observational Study ―Circulation Journal, 2018
- Seasonality of stroke in FinlandAnnals of Medicine, 2016
- Global burden of stroke and risk factors in 188 countries, during 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013The Lancet Neurology, 2016
- Stroke seasonality associations with subtype, etiology and laboratory results in the Ludwigshafen Stroke Study (LuSSt)European Journal of Epidemiology, 2013
- Time to treatment with intravenous alteplase and outcome in stroke: an updated pooled analysis of ECASS, ATLANTIS, NINDS, and EPITHET trialsThe Lancet, 2010
- Stroke incidence and prevalence in Europe: a review of available dataEuropean Journal of Neurology, 2006
- Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors, 2001: systematic analysis of population health dataThe Lancet, 2006