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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 23|pp 23450—23463

Incidence of cerebrovascular disease as a comorbidity in patients with COVID-19: a meta-analysis

Jun Zhang1,2,3, Haili Wang1,4, Min Wei2,3, Hengzhu Zhang2,3, Boming Xia5, Xingdong Wang2,3, Yunlong Pei1, Lun Dong2,3, Yuping Li2,3
  • 1Department of Clinical Medicine, Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116044, Liaoning, China
  • 2Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Medical College of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001, Jiangsu, China
  • 3Department of Neuro Intensive Care Unit, Clinical Medical College of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001, Jiangsu, China
  • 4Department of Neurology, Clinical Medical College of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001, Jiangsu, China
  • 5Department of Emergency Medicine, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang, China
* Equal contribution
Received: May 16, 2020Accepted: August 29, 2020Published: November 23, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.104086

Copyright: © 2020 Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

It is essential to know whether COVID-19 patients have a history of cerebrovascular disease, as it may be predictive of prognosis and useful for allocation of limited medical resources. This meta-analysis was performed to assess the incidence of cerebrovascular disease as a comorbidity in COVID-19 patients. The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, WFSD, and VIP databases were systematically searched. The pooled analysis of relevant data was conducted using RevMan 5.3 software. The primary outcome was incidence of cerebrovascular disease as a comorbidity. Forty-seven studies involving 16,143 COVID-19 patients were included in this analysis. The incidences of a history of cerebrovascular disease and hypertension in COVID-19 patients were estimated to be 3.0% (95% CI, 2.0%-4.0%; P<0.00001) and 23.0% (95% CI, 16.0%-29.0%; P<0.00001), respectively. The incidence of dizziness/headache as the first symptom in COVID-19 patients was estimated to be 14.0% (95% CI, 8.0%-20.0%; P<0.00001). Subgroup analyses indicated that country, sex ratio, and sample size are potential influencing factors affecting the incidences of cerebrovascular disease, hypertension, and dizziness/headache. These findings suggest that cerebrovascular disease is an underlying comorbidity among patients with COVID-19. In addition, patients experiencing dizziness/headache as the first symptom of COVID-19 should receive a neurological examination.