Neurological complications encountered in imaging studies in association with COVID-19 – a single center analysis

Abstract

Introduction and aim. COVID-19 is a viral infectious disease, which was first reported in patients with unusual pneumonia in December 2019. However, as the pandemic progressed, extrapulmonary manifestations including various neurologic complications have been started to be increasingly reported. In this retrospective study, we tried to search the neurological complications seen in our patients with positive rRT-PCR test for COVID-19 and examine the underlying associated risk factors. Material and methods. We have retrospectively analyzed the neuroimaging studies performed in our patients with positive rRT-PCR test for COVID-19 between April, 2020 and August, 2021. Both computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imagings (MRI) of brain, head & neck region and the spine were retrospectively evaluated for the presence of any complications in patients with positive rRT-PCR test for COVID-19. Results. There were 147 patients having neuroradiological imaging studies performed for various neurological symptoms. Among these patients we detected 10 acute neurologicalcomplications.The most common was acute ischemic stroke in 5 patients and intracranial hemorrhage in 3 patients, two of which were intraventricular hemorrhage. The other complications included a preasumed cytotoxic lesion of corpus callosum in a 18 year old girl and lumbar spondylodiscitis complicated with psoas abcess in a 47 year-old man. Conclusion. In COVID-19 patients severe neurological complications can occur even as a presenting manifestation. Early cytotoxic endothelial injury can be the underlying cause in these patients and should be further studied in larger series in terms of what the susceptibility factors in these patients.