COVID-19 could trigger more disabling strokes

Strokes caused by COVID-19 appear to be more disabling and deadly than those not associated with the infectious disease.

“There is an interaction that is still unknown between COVID respiratory disease and stroke, because the rate of poor outcomes or mortality is clearly greater than it would be in someone who had just an acute respiratory distress syndrome or COVID pneumonia, and also worse than someone who would have an equivalently large stroke in the pre-COVID era,” said study co-author Dr. Adam Dmytriw. He’s an interventional neuroradiology and endovascular neurosurgery fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston.

BMJ Study: Acute ischaemic stroke associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in North America