concomitant covid-19 and acute ischemic stroke in patients transferred by emergency medical service during first wave of pandemic in tehran, iran; a cross-sectional study

Objective: we conducted this study to evaluate the prevalence of concomitant covid-19 in acute ischemic stroke (ais) patients admitted to stroke centers of tehran, iran. methods: we conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study in a 45-day period. ais patients transferred by emergency medical service (ems) to all medical centers of the city were included. information was recorded and compared in two groups: patients who tested positive for covid-19 and those who were negative. results: emergency medical technicians (emts) screened 348 patients as ais cases, ofwhom, aiswas ultimately confirmed in 311 (89.4%) patients; and 58 (18.6%) of the 311 ais patients were diagnosed with concomitant covid-19 infection. the national institutes of health stroke scale (nihss) scores of covid-19 positive ais patients were significantly higher than non-covid-19 ais patients (16.3±3.7 vs. 11.8±4.3; p<0.001). there was also a significant difference in length of hospital stay between the two groups (11.1±1.8 vs. 8.8±4.3 days; p<0.001). however, data showed no significant difference regarding prevalence of in-hospital mortality between the two groups (1.6% vs. 3.5%; p=0.320). conclusion: our study results showed that ais patients with concomitant covid-19 infection had highernihss scores and longer length of hospital stay compared to patients without concomitant covid-19 infection.