Table 3.
Differences between COVID-19 positive and negative patients admitted for middle cerebral artery strokes during the pandemic year of 2020
| Pre-matching analysis | Propensity score matched analysis | |||||
| SARS-CoV-2 positive (N=209) | SARS-CoV-2 negative (N=8603) | P value | SARS-CoV-2 positive (N=195) | SARS-CoV-2 negative (N=753) | P value | |
| Female sex | 94 (45.0%) | 4409 (51.2%) | 0.073 | 90 (46.2%) | 346 (45.9%) | 0.959 |
| Mean age (SD) | 64.9 (14.4) | 70.0 (14.6) | <0.001 | 65.4 (14.3) | 65.7 (15.7) | 0.773 |
| NIHSS score | 0.015 | 0.991 | ||||
| 1–4 | 8 (3.8%) | 918 (10.7%) | 8 (4.1%) | 31 (4.1%) | ||
| 5–15 | 66 (31.6%) | 3121 (36.3%) | 65 (33.3%) | 249 (33.1%) | ||
| 16–20 | 34 (16.3%) | 1302 (15.1%) | 31 (15.9%) | 125 (16.6%) | ||
| 21–42 | 42 (20.1%) | 1534 (17.8%) | 36 (18.5%) | 148 (19.7%) | ||
| N-miss | 59 (28.2%) | 1728 (20.1%) | 55 (28.2%) | 200 (26.6%) | ||
| Treatment modality | 0.562 | 0.979 | ||||
| IVT | 65 (31.1%) | 2773 (32.2%) | 62 (31.8%) | 245 (32.5%) | ||
| MT | 120 (57.4%) | 4660 (54.2%) | 110 (56.4%) | 419 (55.6%) | ||
| MT with IVT | 24 (11.5%) | 1170 (13.6%) | 23 (11.8%) | 89 (11.8%) | ||
| Outcomes | ||||||
| Mean length of stay (LOS) in days (SD) | 12.3 (12.0) | 8.2 (10.7) | <0.001 | 10.6 (8.6) | 10.4 (9.0) | 0.788 |
| Mean total charges in USD (SD) | 255 920 (238 810) | 192 269 (183 666) | <0.001 | 229 414 (193 518) | 231 857 (196 519) | 0.878 |
| Subarachnoid haemorrhage | 16 (7.7%) | 505 (5.9%) | 0.280 | 14 (7.2%) | 53 (7.0%) | 0.945 |
| Intracranial haemorrhage | 33 (15.8%) | 1490 (17.3%) | 0.563 | 30 (15.4%) | 177 (23.5%) | 0.014 |
| Intraventricular haemorrhage | 2 (1.0%) | 140 (1.6%) | 0.447 | 2 (1.0%) | 14 (1.9%) | 0.421 |
| Access site haemorrhage | 0 (0.0%) | 76 (0.9%) | 0.172 | 0 (0.0%) | 3 (0.4%) | 0.377 |
| Vasospasm | 2 (1.0%) | 78 (0.9%) | 0.940 | 2 (1.0%) | 11 (1.5%) | 0.641 |
| Haemorrhagic stroke | 18 (8.6%) | 710 (8.3%) | 0.852 | 18 (9.2%) | 83 (11.0%) | 0.470 |
| Wound dehiscence | 1 (0.5%) | 9 (0.1%) | 0.113 | 1 (0.5%) | 2 (0.3%) | 0.584 |
| Vascular catheter infection | 0 (0.0%) | 5 (0.1%) | 0.727 | 0 (0.0%) | 2 (0.3%) | 0.471 |
| Thromboembolic events | 25 (12.0%) | 452 (5.3%) | <0.001 | 24 (12.3%) | 57 (7.6%) | 0.035 |
| Acute kidney injury | 56 (26.8%) | 1570 (18.2%) | 0.002 | 49 (25.1%) | 152 (20.2%) | 0.132 |
| Myocardial infarction | 15 (7.2%) | 487 (5.7%) | 0.350 | 12 (6.2%) | 47 (6.2%) | 0.964 |
| Neurological complications | 0 (0.0%) | 46 (0.5%) | 0.289 | 0 (0.0%) | 7 (0.9%) | 0.177 |
| Respiratory complications | 26 (12.4%) | 567 (6.6%) | <0.001 | 22 (11.3%) | 50 (6.6%) | 0.029 |
| Cardiac complications | 0 (0.0%) | 49 (0.6%) | 0.274 | 0 (0.0%) | 5 (0.7%) | 0.254 |
| Urinary complications | 56 (26.8%) | 1570 (18.2%) | 0.002 | 49 (25.1%) | 152 (20.2%) | 0.132 |
| Non-routine discharge | 176 (84.2%) | 6613 (76.9%) | 0.013 | 165 (84.6%) | 615 (81.8%) | 0.355 |
| In-hospital mortality | 55 (26.3%) | 843 (9.8%) | <0.001 | 52 (26.7%) | 64 (8.5%) | <0.001 |
Bold indicates statistically significant p-values (p<0.05).
IVT, intravenous thrombolysis; MT, mechanical thrombectomy; NIHSS, NIH Stroke Severity.