A new scoring system can accurately predict the stroke risk of adults hospitalized with COVID-19, according to new data to be presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2022.
Researchers developed the scoring system using data from the American Heart Association’s COVID-19 Registry, which includes patients from throughout the United States.
The scoring system uses six clinical factors to predict a patient's risk of stroke after COVID-19 infection. These factors include the patient's history of stroke, pulmonary disease and high blood pressure in addition to data recorded during their hospitalization.
“Of the six factors linked to increased risk of stroke, one was ‘no history of pulmonary disease’ and another was ‘no fever,'" lead author Alexander E. Merkler, MD, MS, an assistant professor of neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, said in a prepared statement. "This seemed a bit surprising because patients with lung disease and those with high fever are at higher risk to develop severe COVID-19."
To develop the scoring system, researchers analyzed data from 21,420 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 at 122 health care centers in the United States from March 2020 to March 2021. Fifty-four percent of patients were men, and the median age was 61 years old.
Overall, 1 in 65 adults who were hospitalized with COVID-19 had a stroke.
Meanwhile, registry patients with four or more of the scoring system's clinical risk factors were more than 10 times as likely to have a stroke.
The study's authors also verified the accuracy of their scoring system by comparing its results to an AI-powered computer model. The two prediction methods, it turned out, achieved similar results.
“This clinical risk score may help professionals better understand which patients with COVID-19 are at increased risk for stroke, and, therefore, monitor them more closely and provide treatment more quickly,” Merkler said. “Future research could focus on specific treatments that may benefit people with COVID-19 who are at higher risk for stroke.”
The International Stroke Conference 2022 is scheduled to run from Feb. 8 to Feb. 11. More information is available here.