TOPLINE:
Hospitalization for influenza is linked to a greater risk for subsequent neurological disorders including migraine, stroke, or epilepsy than hospitalization for COVID-19, results of a large study show.
METHODOLOGY:
- Researchers used healthcare claims data to compare 77,300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 with 77,300 hospitalized with influenza. The study did not include individuals with long COVID.
- In the final sample of 154,500 participants, the mean age was 51 years, and more than half (58%) were female.
- Investigators followed participants from both cohorts for a year to find out how many of them had medical care for six of the most common neurological disorders: Migraine, epilepsy, stroke, neuropathy, movement disorders, and dementia.
- If participants had one of these neurological disorders prior to the original hospitalization, the primary outcome involved subsequent healthcare encounters for the neurological diagnosis.
TAKEAWAY:
- Participants hospitalized with COVID-19 vs influenza were significantly less likely to require care in the following year for migraine (2% vs 3.2%), epilepsy (1.6% vs 2.1%), neuropathy (1.9% vs 3.6%), movement disorders ( 1.5% vs 2.5%), stroke (2% vs 2.4%), and dementia (2% vs 2.3%) (all P < .001).
- After adjusting for age, sex, and other health conditions, researchers found that people hospitalized with COVID-19 had a 35% lower risk of receiving care for migraine, a 22% lower risk of receiving care for epilepsy, and a 44% lower risk of receiving care for neuropathy than those with influenza. They also had a 36% lower risk of receiving care for movement disorders, a 10% lower risk for stroke (all P < .001), as well as a 7% lower risk for dementia (P = .0007).
- In participants who did not have a preexisting neurological condition at the time of hospitalization for either COVID-19 or influenza, 2.8% hospitalized with COVID-19 developed one in the next year compared with 5% of those hospitalized with influenza.
IN PRACTICE:
“While the results were not what we expected to find, they are reassuring in that we found being hospitalized with COVID did not lead to more care for common neurological conditions when compared to being hospitalized with influenza,” study investigator Brian C. Callaghan, MD , of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, said in a press release.
SOURCE:
Adam de Havenon, MD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, led the study, which was published online on March 20 in Neurology.
LIMITATIONS:
The study relied on ICD codes in health claims databases, which could introduce misclassification bias. Also, by selecting only individuals who had associated hospital-based care, there may have been a selection bias based on disease severity.
DISCLOSURES:
The study was funded by the American Academy of Neurology. De Havenon reported receiving consultant fees from Integra and Novo Nordisk and royalty fees from UpToDate and has equity in TitinKM and Certus. Callaghan consulted for DynaMed and performs medical legal consultations including consultations for the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Other disclosures were noted in the original article.
