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Doctors from the Vall d'Hebron Hospital follow up on 2.050 patients for two months.
Patients with severe lung damage due to covid-19 have a higher risk of suffering a stroke, according to a study carried out by doctors at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, who followed 2.050 patients for two months.
The study, published in the 'Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases', has proven that the virus does not increase the risk of stroke when there is no serious lung damage and that patients with coronavirus and stroke caused by occlusion of large blood vessels and treated through thrombectomy have higher mortality than patients who suffer a stroke and receive the same treatment but do not have the virus.
The work has also concluded that this increased risk of stroke does not occur in patients with Covid-19 without severe lung damage, who have the same risk of stroke as the rest of the population.
Two months of follow-up
The study was carried out between March and April, two months in which doctors followed hospitalized patients and verified that SARS-CoV-2 infection is related, in many patients, to the appearance of thrombosis, especially pulmonary thromboembolisms that They can lead to serious complications and even death.
To specifically understand the risk that covid-19 poses for the appearance of ischemic stroke, which is caused by thrombi in the brain, the professionals at the Vall d'Hebron Stroke Unit monitored 2.050 patients who were admitted to the hospital. during the two months of the study.
Among the total number of patients analyzed, 21 suffered an ischemic stroke, but not in all cases the researchers found a relationship with covid-19, since in 12 of them one of the most common risk factors for stroke in the population was found. general population, such as smoking, high cholesterol levels or high blood pressure.
Six of the patients who suffered a stroke did not have any of the usually associated risk factors and the rest of the patients died before the origin could be established.
"In these six patients, without risk factors and whose stroke we relate to Covid-19, there was severe lung damage that required mechanical ventilation. Therefore, the study demonstrates that in patients with the coronavirus, the risk of suffering a stroke It only increases if they suffer severe lung damage," explained Manuel Requena, doctor and researcher in the Stroke Research group of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and first author of the study.
Behavior like other viruses
According to Requena, this finding agrees with the results of previous studies that relate this type of damage to the lungs, as well as infection by various bacteria and viruses, with the appearance of neurological symptoms and in particular with stroke. In this way, SARS-CoV-2 would follow the same behavior as other viruses.
Requena has insisted that "the majority of patients with Covid-19 do not present serious lung damage." "And in these cases we have verified that the risk of stroke does not increase."
The specialist has also explained that the study shows that patients with the virus who suffer a stroke caused by the obstruction of large blood vessels and are treated by thrombectomy, the standard treatment, have a worse prognosis and higher mortality than those who do not. They have infection.
"The worse clinical evolution of these patients could be due to the lung damage associated with Covid-19, which would cause less oxygen to reach the brain and, therefore, the stroke treatment would not be as effective," he concluded.
