A quick and easy scoring system has been developed to predict which hospitalized COVID-19 patients have a greater risk for stroke.

The new system, presented at the 2022 International Stroke Conference (ISC), will help clinicians stratify the patients and assist with closer monitoring of those who have the highest risk for stroke. Investigators used the American Heart Association (AHA) Get with the Guidelines COVID-19 cardiovascular disease registry for the analysis. A total of 21,420 adult patients (mean age 61 years), who were hospitalized with COVID-19 at 122 centers between March 2020 and March 2021 were assessed. Among the hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 312 (1.5%) had a cerebrovascular event.

Researchers used standard statistical models to identify the risk factors most associated with the development of stroke and six such factors were identified, including history of stroke, no fever at the time of hospital admission, no history of pulmonary disease, elevated white blood cell count, history of hypertension, and raised systolic blood pressure at the time of hospital admission.

The scoring system assigns points for each variable, with more points pointing to a higher risk of stroke. Researchers also used a machine-learning approach wherein a computer takes all the variables and determines the best algorithm to predict stroke. The machine-learning algorithm was reported to be as good as the standard model… (Medscape)