ABSTRACT
Background: Because COVID-19 is thought to be pro-thrombotic and could theoretically increase the severity of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), we sought to examine the outcomes of CVST patients with comorbid COVID-19 infection. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis using the Vizient Clinical Data Base (CDB), a healthcare analytics platform employed by participating US hospitals. We identified CVST with the ICD-10 codes I63.6, I67.6, G08.x, O22.5, and O87.3. We created three cohorts of patients: CVST with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in April, May or June 2020, CVST with influenza-like illness (ILI) in 2019, and CVST without ILI in 2019. The outcomes are 1) in-hospital death and 2) favorable discharge (discharge destination home or acute rehabilitation). We fit logistic regression models to our outcomes and adjusted for patient age, sex, race/ethnicity, Elixhauser comorbidity score, acute respiratory failure requiring intubation, and hospital length of stay. Results: We identified 73 patients with CVST and COVID-19, 159 with CVST and ILI, and 4,146 with CVST and no COVID-19 or ILI. The patient death rates were 20.6%, 8.8%, and 5.1%, respectively, and favorable discharge rates were 58.9%, 52.8%, and 77.3%, respectively. Compared to CVST patients with ILI, those with COVID-19 were not significantly more likely to die in-hospital (adjusted OR 1.43, 95% CI 0.44-4.66, p=0.557) or to have favorable discharge (adjusted OR 1.75, 95% CI 0.58-5.25, p=0.321). Compared to CVST patients without ILI or COVID-19, those with COVID-19 were also not significantly more likely to die in-hospital (adjusted OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.35- 2.12, p=0.751) or to have favorable discharge (adjusted OR 1.52, 95% CI 0.62-3.69, p=0.358). Conclusion: Although CVST patients with COVID-19 had a higher in-hospital death rate and lower favorable discharge rates, after adjusting for potential confounders there was no association between worse outcomes in CVST patients with COVID-19. This suggests that while CVST may complicate COVID-19, it does not portend a worse prognosis than CVST in patients with either ILI or no ILI or COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Studies have shown worse outcomes in patients with comorbid ischemic stroke (IS) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but have had small sample sizes. METHODS: We retrospectively identified patients in the Vizient Clinical Data Base R with IS as a discharge diagnosis. The study outcomes were in-hospital death and favorable discharge (home or acute rehabilitation). In the primary analysis, we compared IS patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 (IS-COVID) discharged April 1-July 31, 2020 to pre-COVID IS patients discharged in 2019 (IS controls). In a secondary analysis, we compared a matched cohort of IS-COVID patients to patients within the IS controls who had pneumonia (IS-PNA), created with inverse-probability-weighting (IPW). RESULTS: In the primary analysis, we included 166,586 IS controls and 2086 IS-COVID from 312 hospitals in 46 states. Compared to IS controls, IS-COVID were less likely to have hypertension, dyslipidemia, or be smokers, but more likely to be male, younger, have diabetes, obesity, acute renal failure, acute coronary syndrome, venous thromboembolism, intubation, and comorbid intracerebral or subarachnoid hemorrhage (all p<0.05). Black and Hispanic patients accounted for 21.7% and 7.4% of IS controls, respectively, but 33.7% and 18.5% of IS-COVID (p<0.001). IS-COVID, versus IS controls, were less likely to receive alteplase (1.8% vs 5.6%, p<0.001), mechanical thrombectomy (4.4% vs. 6.7%, p<0.001), to have favorable discharge (33.9% vs. 66.4%, p<0.001), but more likely to die (30.4% vs. 6.5%, p<0.001). In the matched cohort of patients with IS-COVID and IS-PNA, IS-COVID had a higher risk of death (IPW-weighted OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.33-1.82) and lower odds of favorable discharge (IPW-weighted OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.54-0.73). CONCLUSIONS: Ischemic stroke patients with COVID-19 are more likely to be male, younger, and Black or Hispanic, with significant increases in morbidity and mortality compared to both ischemic stroke controls from 2019 and to patients with ischemic stroke and pneumonia.