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Published on: August 30, 2020
Intracranial Hemorrhage in a Patient With COVID-19: Possible Explanations and Considerations
Bhanu Gogia1, Xiang Fang1, Prashant Rai1
1Neurology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA.
Insights
COVID-19 can cause neurological issues, including dangerous bleeding in the brain. A patient on blood thinners developed a fatal hemorrhage, raising concerns about anticoagulation safety in COVID-19 patients.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Hematology
- Infectious Diseases
Background:
- COVID-19 is associated with various neurological complications.
- Intracranial hemorrhage is a rare but severe manifestation.
Observation:
- A 75-year-old COVID-19 patient presented with elevated D-dimer and coagulopathy.
- The patient was treated with aspirin, clopidogrel, and therapeutic enoxaparin.
- Neurological deterioration occurred, confirmed by CT scan revealing extensive intracranial hemorrhage.
Findings:
- The patient developed a fatal acute subdural hematoma, intraparenchymal hemorrhage, and subarachnoid hemorrhage.
- Contributing factors included hypertension, triple antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy, and COVID-19-related coagulopathy.
Implications:
- This case highlights the potential risk of life-threatening intracranial hemorrhage in COVID-19 patients receiving therapeutic anticoagulation.
- Caution is advised when initiating aggressive anticoagulation in COVID-19 patients, especially those with pre-existing risk factors.
Abstract:
Some of the reported neurological manifestations of COVID-19 are encephalopathy, headache, ischemic, hemorrhagic stroke, Miller Fisher syndrome, cranial neuropathies, and Guillain-Barre syndrome. We report a case of a 75-year-old COVID-19 patient with life-threatening intracranial hemorrhage. The initial labs on admission showed D-dimer of 1.04 µg/mL, which increased to 3.74 µg/mL the next day, PT/INR of 13.7 seconds/1.2, aPTT of 22 seconds, fibrinogen of 386 mg/dL, WBC of 9.71 K/µL, Hgb of 14.1 g/dL, platelet of 315 x 103/µL, LDH of 965 U/L, and CRP of 35.2 mg/dL. In addition to aspirin and Plavix (clopidogrel), the patient was started on a therapeutic dose of enoxaparin due to elevated D-dimer. A few days later, the patient had a change in the neurological examination. The CT of the head without contrast revealed a left-sided acute subdural hematoma, causing left to right midline shift, a large left temporal intraparenchymal, and subarachnoid hemorrhage with transtentorial herniation, leading to death. This case illustrates a combination of factors including hypertension, triple therapy (aspirin, clopidogrel, and enoxaparin), and underlying coagulopathy due to COVID-19, which contributed to the life-threatening intracranial hemorrhage in this patient. Therefore, this raises a concern about the safety of starting these patients preemptively on a therapeutic dose of anticoagulation.
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