Global Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Stroke Volumes and Cerebrovascular Events
Thanh N. Nguyen, Muhammad M. Qureshi, Piers Klein, Hiroshi Yamagami, Robert Mikulík, Anna Członkowska, Mohamad Abdalkader, Petra Šedová, Anvitha Sathya, Hannah Lo, Malek Mansour, Husitha Reddy Vanguru, É. Lesaine, Georgios Tsivgoulis, Aaron Loochtan, Jelle Demeestere, Ken Uchino, Violiza Inoa, Nitin Goyal, Andreas Charidimou, James E. Siegler, Shadi Yaghi, Diana Aguiar de Sousa, Mahmoud Mohammaden, Diogo C Haussen, Espen Saxhaug Kristoffersen, Virginia Pujol Lereis, Sergio Scollo, Bruce Campbell, Alice Ma, James Thomas, Mark Parsons, Shaloo Singhal, Lee‐Anne Slater, Rodrigo Tomazini Martins, Chris Enzinger, Thomas Gattringer, Aminur Rahman, Thomas Bonnet, Noémie Ligot, Sylvie De Raedt, Robin Lemmens, Peter Vanacker, Fenne Vandervorst, Adriana Bastos Conforto, Raquel C.T. Hidalgo, Luciana de Oliveira Neves, Rodrigo Targa Martins, Daissy Liliana Mora Cuervo, Letícia C. Rebello, Igor Bessa Santiago, Isabelle Lameirinhas da Silva, Teodora Sakelarova, Rosen Kalpachki, Filip Alexiev, Luciana Catanese, Elena Adela Cora, Mayank Goyal, Michael D. Hill, Michael Kelly, Houman Khosravani, Pascale Lavoie, Lissa Peeling, Aleksandra Pikula, Rodrigo Rivera, Dawei Chen, Yimin Chen, Xiaochuan Huo, Zhongrong Miao, Shuiquan Yang, Marina Roje Bedeković, Marina Bralić, Hrvoje Budinčević, Ángel Basilio Corredor-Quintero, Osvaldo E. Lara-Sarabia, Martin Čábal, Dusan Tenora, Petr Fibrich, Roman Herzig, Helena Hlaváčová, Emanuela Hrabanovska, David Hlinovský, Lubomír Jurák, Jana Kadlcíková, Igor Karpowicz, Lukáš Klečka, Martin Kovář, David Lauer, Jiří Neumann, Hana Paloušková, Martin Reiser, Petra Reková, Vladimír Rohan, Ondřej Škoda, Miroslav Škorňa, Lenka Sobotková, Martin Šrámek, Lenka Žáková, Hanne Christensen, Nicolas Drenck
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Declines in stroke admission, IV thrombolysis (IVT), and mechanical thrombectomy volumes were reported during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a paucity of data on the longer-term effect of the pandemic on stroke volumes over the course of a year and through the second wave of the pandemic. We sought to measure the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volumes of stroke admissions, intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), IVT, and mechanical thrombectomy over a 1-year period at the onset of the pandemic (March 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021) compared with the immediately preceding year (March 1, 2019, to February 29, 2020). METHODS: codes or classifications in stroke databases. RESULTS: = 0.49). Stroke was diagnosed in 1.3% [1.31-1.38] of 406,792 COVID-19 hospitalizations. SARS-CoV-2 infection was present in 2.9% ([2.82-2.97], 5,656/195,539) of all stroke hospitalizations. DISCUSSION: There was a global decline and shift to lower-volume centers of stroke admission volumes, ICH volumes, and IVT volumes during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the prior year. Mechanical thrombectomy volumes were preserved. These results suggest preservation in the stroke care of higher severity of disease through the first pandemic year. TRIAL REGISTRATION INFORMATION: This study is registered under NCT04934020.