International Prevalence and Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 in Childhood Arterial Ischemic Stroke During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Publication/Presentation Date
8-1-2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Data from the early pandemic revealed that 0.62% of children hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had an acute arterial ischemic stroke (AIS). In a larger cohort from June 2020 to December 2020, we sought to determine whether our initial point estimate was stable as the pandemic continued and to understand radiographic and laboratory data that may clarify mechanisms of pediatric AIS in the setting of SARS-CoV-2.
METHODS: We surveyed international sites with pediatric stroke expertise to determine numbers of hospitalized SARS-CoV-2 patients < 18 years, numbers of incident AIS cases among children (29 days to < 18 years), frequency of SARS-CoV-2 testing for children with AIS, and numbers of childhood AIS cases positive for SARS-CoV-2 June 1 to December 31, 2020. Two stroke neurologists with 1 neuroradiologist determined whether SARS-CoV-2 was the main stroke risk factor, contributory, or incidental.
RESULTS: Sixty-one centers from 21 countries provided AIS data. Forty-eight centers (78.7%) provided SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization data. SARS-CoV-2 testing was performed in 335/373 acute AIS cases (89.8%) compared with 99/166 (59.6%) in March to May 2020,
CONCLUSIONS: The risk of AIS among children hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 appeared stable compared with our earlier estimate. Among children in whom SARS-CoV-2 was considered the main stroke risk factor, inflammatory arteriopathies were the stroke mechanism.
Volume
53
Issue
8
First Page
2497
Last Page
2503
ISSN
1524-4628
Published In/Presented At
Beslow, L. A., Agner, S. C., Santoro, J. D., Ram, D., Wilson, J. L., Harrar, D., Appavu, B., Fraser, S. M., Rossor, T., Torres, M. D., Kossorotoff, M., Zuñiga Zambrano, Y. C., Hernández-Chávez, M., Hassanein, S. M. A., Zafeiriou, D., Dowling, M. M., Kopyta, I., Stence, N. V., Bernard, T. J., Dlamini, N., … International Pediatric Stroke Study Group (2022). International Prevalence and Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 in Childhood Arterial Ischemic Stroke During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Stroke, 53(8), 2497–2503. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.121.038250
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences | Pediatrics
PubMedID
35380052
Department(s)
Department of Pediatrics
Document Type
Article