Ischemic stroke in patients that recover from COVID-19: Comparisons to historical stroke prior to COVID-19 or stroke in patients with active COVID-19 infection

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Understanding the relationship of COVID-19 to stroke is important. We compare characteristics of pre-pandemic historical stroke (Pre-C), cases in acute COVID infection (Active-C) and in patients who have recovered from COVID-19 infection (Post-C). METHODS: We interrogated the Qatar stroke database for all stroke admissions between Jan 2019 and Feb 2020 (Pre-C) to Active-C (Feb2020-Feb2021) and Post-C to determine how COVID-19 affected ischemic stroke sub-types, clinical course, and outcomes prior to, during and post-pandemic peak. We used the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) to measure outcome at 90-days (mRS 0–2 good recovery and mRS 3–6 as poor recovery). For the current analysis, we compared the clinical features and prognosis in patients with confirmed acute ischemic stroke. RESULTS: There were 1413 cases admitted (pre-pandemic: 1324, stroke in COVID-19: 46 and recovered COVID-19 stroke: 43). Patients with Active-C were significantly younger, had more severe symptoms, fever on presentation, more ICU admissions and poor stroke recovery at discharge when compared to Pre-C and Post-C. Large vessel disease and cardioembolic disease was significantly more frequent in Active-C compared to PRE-C or post-C. CONCLUSIONS: Stroke in Post-C has characteristics similar to Pre-C with no evidence of lasting effects of the virus on the short-term. However, Active-C is a more serious disease and tends to be more severe and have a poor prognosis.