Strokes Reported Among Some Middle-Aged COVID-19 Patients

Early reports from hospitals document a spike in large vessel blockages, especially among people in their 30s and 40s who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Written byKerry Grens
| 2 min read
stroke coronavirus covid-19 young patients blood clots large vessel occlusion mt. sinai hospital new york city

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ABOVE: A field hospital in Central Park, set up to treat coronavirus patients, across from Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York
© ISTOCK.COM, CHRISTINE MCCANN

Several hospitals in the US have observed strokes in a number of patients being treating for coronavirus, leading to concern that the infection may be causing devastating blockages in the brain. For at least two facilities, these events account for a spike in stroke cases among middle-aged patients.

“Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks,” Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York who describes five of his patients in an upcoming paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, tells CNN. “Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid.”

Although the numbers ...

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  • kerry grens

    Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.

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