Hemorrhagic infarctive stroke in COVID-19 patients: report of two cases and review of the literature

ABSTRACT

There is growing evidence in support of ischemic stroke as a manifestation of COVID-19 infection. However, hemorrhagic transformation of ischemic stroke is rare. We present two cases of hemorrhagic infarction as presenting features in COVID-19 patients who did not have traditional cardiovascular risk factors for ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. While the hemorrhagic infarct was from a large artery in one of the patients, the other patient had a small artery related hemorrhagic infarct. We highlighted the possible underlining mechanisms from the literature and the implication of hemorrhagic infarct for routine anticoagulant therapy in patients with COVID −19 related ischemic stroke.

KEYWORDS:

• Hemorrhagic infarct
• ischemia
• COVID-19
• coronavirus

Disclosure statement

All the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence this case report.