Neurological complications of COVID19 during March 2020 at LCMC health university medical center: Dataset.

We reviewed the electronic medical records (EMR) of patients hospitalized during the peak of the pandemic, March 1st through March 31st, to document the type and frequency of neurological problems seen in patients with COVID-19 at presentation to the emergency room. Secondary aims were to determine: 1) the frequency of neurological complaints during the hospital stay; 2) whether the presence of any neurological complaint at presentation or any of the individual types of neurological complaints at admission predicted three separate outcomes: death, length of hospital stay, or the need for intubation; and 3) if the presence of any neurological complaint or any of the individual types of neurological complaints developed during hospital stay predicted the previous three outcomes. SETTING: The Louisiana Health Sciences Center - New Orleans Institutional Review Board and the University Medical Center Clinical Research Review Committee approved the study protocol. DATA ACQUISITION: We reviewed the electronic medical records (EMR) of patients hospitalized during March (March 1st through March 31st) 2020 at the University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO), who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the same hospitalization. The EMR team generated a list of 257 patients admitted for COVID-19. We excluded seven patients because of a negative COVID-19 test result or incomplete medical record documentation. Three neurology residents (DC, MS, DB) reviewed the EMR in detail to capture the relevant medical history, clinical course, and laboratory test results and abstracted data into an electronic data collection spreadsheet.We recorded the presentation or development of the following neurological complaints: headache, syncope, altered mental status, seizure, status epilepticus, and ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: We used "R" (statistics software) and Microsoft Excel to generate summary tables. To analyze hospital length of stay or death, we fitted a competing risks proportional hazards model for time to discharge or death using the crr() function in R version 4.0.0. The competing risks model allowed the analysis of hospital stay, taking into account that the censoring of cases due to death was not random. To predict the likelihood of intubation, we used the glm() function in R to fit a logistic regression model. For each model, we determined baseline demographic variables predictive of the outcomes and generated adjusted models. For variables with less than five cases per cell, we reported the p-values for Fisher's Exact Test.The analyses and results are published in:Chachkhiani, David et al. "Neurological complications in a predominantly African American population of COVID-19 predict worse outcomes during hospitalization." Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery (in press).These data will be useful for researchers trying to build larger datasets regarding COVID19 neurological complications for metanalysis or to answer other questions requiring larger sample sizes.

Neurological complications in a predominantly African American sample of COVID-19 predict worse outcomes during hospitalization.

People with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, COVID-19, can have neurological problems including headache, anosmia, dysgeusia, altered mental status (AMS), ischemic stroke with or without large vessel occlusion, and Guillen-Barre Syndrome. Louisiana was one of the states hit hardest by the pandemic with just over 57,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 by the end of June 2020. We reviewed the electronic medical records (EMR) of patients hospitalized during the peak of the pandemic, March 1st through March 31st, to document the type and frequency of neurological problems seen in patients with COVID-19 at presentation to the emergency room. Secondary aims were to determine: 1) the frequency of neurological complaints during the hospital stay; 2) whether the presence of any neurological complaint at presentation or any of the individual types of neurological complaints at admission predicted three separate outcomes: death, length of hospital stay, or the need for intubation; and 3) if the presence of any neurological complaint or any of the individual types of neurological complaints developed during hospital stay predicted the previous three outcomes. A large proportion of our sample (80 %) was African American and had hypertension (79 %). Out of 250 patients, 56 (22 %) patients died, and 72 (29 %) patients required intubation. Thirty-four (14 %) had a neurological chief complaint at presentation; the most common neurological chief complaints in the entire sample were altered mental status (AMS) (8 %), headache (2 %), and syncope (2 %). We used a competing risk model to determine whether neurological symptoms at presentation or during hospital stay were predictors of prolonged hospital stay and death. To establish whether neurological symptoms were associated with higher odds of intubation, we used logistic regression. Age was the only significant demographic predictor of death and hospital stay. The HR (95 %CI) for remaining in the hospital for a ten-year increase in age was 1.2, (1.1, 1.3, p < 0.0001), and for death was 1.3, (1.1, 1.5, p < 0.01). There were no demographic characteristics, including age or comorbidities predictive of intubation. Adjusting for age, patients who at presentation had neurological issues as their chief complaint were at significantly increased risk for remaining in the hospital, HR = 1.7, (1.1,2.5, p = 0.0001), and dying, HR = 2.1(1.1,3.8, p = 0.02), compared to patients without any neurological complaint. Of the individual admission complaints, AMS was associated with a significantly prolonged hospital stay, HR = 1.8, (1.0-3.3, p = 0.05). Patients that required dialysis or intubation or had AMS during hospitalization had more extended hospital stays. After adjusting for age, dialysis, and intubation, patients with AMS during hospital stay had a HR of 1.6, (1.1, 2.5, p = 0.01) for remaining in the hospital. Patients who had statistically significant higher odds of requiring intubation were those who presented with any neurological chief complaint, OR = 2.8 (1.3,5.8, p = 0.01), or with headaches OR = 13.3 (2.1,257.0, p = 0.008). Patients with AMS during the hospital stay, as well as those who had seizures, were more likely to need intubation. In the multivariate model, dialysis, OR = 4.9 (2.6,9.4, p < 0.0001), and AMS, OR = 8.8 (3.9,21.2, p < 0.0001), were the only independent predictors of intubation. Neurological complaints at presentation and during the hospital stay are associated with a higher risk of death, prolonged hospital stay, and intubation. More work is needed to determine whether the cause of the neurological complaints was direct CNS involvement by the virus or the other systemic complications of the virus.

Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes Based on Race of Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19 in a New Orleans Cohort.

BACKGROUND: In Louisiana, deaths related to COVID-19 have disproportionately occurred in Black persons. Granular data are needed to better understand inequities and develop prevention strategies to mitigate further impact on Black communities. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of patients admitted to an urban safety net hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, with reactive SARS-CoV-2 testing from March 9 to 31, 2020. Clinical characteristics of Black and other racial/ethnic group patients were compared using Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Fisher exact tests. The relationship between race and outcome was assessed using day 14 status on an ordinal scale. RESULTS: This study included 249 patients. The median age was 59, 44% were male, and 86% were age ≥65 years or had ≥1 comorbidity. Overall, 87% were Black, relative to 55% Black patients typically hospitalized at our center. Black patients had longer symptom duration at presentation (6.41 vs 5.88 days; P = .05) and were more likely to have asthma (P = .008) but less likely to have dementia (P = .002). There were no racial differences in initial respiratory status or laboratory values except for higher lactate dehydrogenase in Black patients. Patient age and initial oxygen requirement, but not race (adjusted proportional odds ratio, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.70-1.20), were associated with worse day 14 outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate minor racial differences in comorbidities or disease severity at presentation, and day 14 outcomes were not different between groups. However, Black patients were disproportionately represented in hospitalizations, suggesting that prevention efforts should include strategies to limit SARS-CoV-2 exposures and transmission in Black communities as one step toward reducing COVID-19-related racial inequities.