| Cross-sectional case-control studies  

Global Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cerebral Venous Thrombosis and Mortality

Recent studies suggested an increased incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

In this article the authors evaluated the volume of CVT hospitalization and in-hospital mortality during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding year. They conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 171 stroke centers from 49 countries. COVID-19 admission volumes, CVT hospitalization, and CVT in-hospital mortality from January 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021 were recorded. CVT diagnoses were identified by International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) codes or stroke databases. The authors additionally sought to compare the same metrics in the first 5 months of 2021 compared to the corresponding months in 2019 and 2020 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04934020). There were 2,313 CVT admissions across the 1-year pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic year (2020); no differences in CVT volume or CVT mortality were observed. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT volumes compared to 2019 (27.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 24.2 to 32.0; P<0.0001) and 2020 (41.4%; 95% CI, 37.0 to 46.0; P<0.0001). A COVID-19 diagnosis was present in 7.6% (132/1,738) of CVT hospitalizations. CVT was present in 0.04% (103/292,080) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. During the first pandemic year, CVT mortality was higher in patients who were COVID positive compared to COVID negative patients (8/53 [15.0%] vs. 41/910 [4.5%], P=0.004). There was an increase in CVT mortality during the first 5 months of pandemic years 2020 and 2021 compared to the first 5 months of the pre-pandemic year 2019 (2019 vs. 2020: 2.26% vs. 4.74%, P=0.05; 2019 vs. 2021: 2.26% vs. 4.99%, P=0.03). In the first 5 months of 2021, there were 26 cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), resulting in six deaths. The authors concluded that during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic, CVT hospitalization volume and CVT in-hospital mortality did not change compared to the prior year while COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with higher CVT in-hospital mortality. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT hospitalization volume and increase in CVT-related mortality, partially attributable to VITT.
Nguyen TN, Qureshi MM, Klein P, Yamagami H, Abdalkader M, Mikulik R, Sathya A, Mansour OY, Czlonkowska A, Lo H, Field TS, Charidimou A, Banerjee S, Yaghi S, Siegler JE, Sedova P, Kwan J, de Sousa DA, Demeestere J, Inoa V, Omran SS, Zhang L, Michel P, Strambo D, Marto JP, Nogueira RG; SVIN COVID-19 Global COVID Stroke Registry. Global Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cerebral Venous Thrombosis and Mortality. J Stroke. 2022 May;24(2):256-265.

doi: 10.5853/jos.2022.00752