Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on acute intracerebral haemorrhage in northern Italy

INTRODUCTION: Growing evidence has been published as to the impact of SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) on cerebrovascular events over the last few months, with considerable attention paid to ischemic strokes. Conversely, little is known about the clinical course of intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) and simultaneous SARS-CoV-2 infection. METHOD: The Italian Society of Hospital Neurosciences (SNO) promoted a multicentre, retrospective, observational study (SNO-COVID-19), involving 20 Neurological Departments in Northern Italy. Clinical data on patients with acute cerebrovascular diseases, admitted from March 1st to April 30th, 2020, were collected. A comparison was made of the demographical and clinical features of both SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative patients with ICH. RESULTS: 949 patients were enrolled (average age 73.4 years; 52.7% males); 135 patients had haemorrhagic stroke and 127 (13.4%) had a primary ICH. Only 16 patients with ICH (12.6%) had laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. SARS-CoV-2 related pneumonia or respiratory distress (OR 5.4), lobar location (OR 5.0) and previous antiplatelet or anticoagulant treatment (OR 2.9) were the only factors significantly associated with increased mortality in ICH. SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of respiratory involvement, led to a non-significantly increased risk of in-hospital death (37.5% vs 23.4%, p = 0.2). DISCUSSION: ICH patients with COVID-19 did not experience an increase in mortality as striking as ischemic stroke. The inflammatory response and respiratory complications could justify the slight increase of death in ICH. Bleeding sites and previous antiplatelet or anticoagulant treatment were the only other predictors of a worse outcome.