PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Radmanesh, A.
AU  - Raz, E.
AU  - Zan, E.
AU  - Derman, A.
AU  - Kaminetzky, M.
TI  - Brain Imaging Use and Findings in COVID-19: A Single Academic Center Experience in the Epicenter of Disease in the United States
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A6610
DP  - 2020 May 28
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2020/05/28/ajnr.A6610.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2020/05/28/ajnr.A6610.full
AB  - SUMMARY: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious public health crisis and can have neurologic manifestations. This is a retrospective observational case series performed March 1–31, 2020, at New York University Langone Medical Center campuses. Clinical and imaging data were extracted, reviewed, and analyzed. Two hundred forty-two patients with COVID-19 underwent CT or MRI of the brain within 2 weeks after the positive result of viral testing (mean age, 68.7 ± 16.5 years; 150 men/92 women [62.0%/38.0%]). The 3 most common indications for imaging were altered mental status (42.1%), syncope/fall (32.6%), and focal neurologic deficit (12.4%). The most common imaging findings were nonspecific white matter microangiopathy (134/55.4%), chronic infarct (47/19.4%), acute or subacute ischemic infarct (13/5.4%), and acute hemorrhage (11/4.5%). No patients imaged for altered mental status demonstrated acute ischemic infarct or acute hemorrhage. White matter microangiopathy was associated with higher 2-week mortality (P < .001). Our data suggest that in the absence of a focal neurologic deficit, brain imaging in patients with early COVID-19 with altered mental status may not be revealing.CoVcoronavirusCOVID-19coronavirus disease 2019SARS-COV-2Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2