Emerging research showed that patients with COVID-19 had 3.5 times the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and 2.6 times the risk for Parkinson’s disease in comparison to those who did not have COVID-19.
Patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had significantly elevated risks for developing Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ischemic stroke, and intracerebral hemorrhage in comparison to people who tested negative for COVID-19, according to the findings of a new study presented recently at the 8th European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress in Vienna, Austria.
In the study, which involved over 919,000 people in Denmark who were tested for COVID-19 between February 2020 and November 2021, 43,375 patients tested positive for COVID-19. Researchers found that patients with COVID-19 had 3.5 times the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, 2.6 times the risk of having Parkinson’s disease, 2.7 times the risk for suffering ischemic stroke and 4.8 times the risk of having intracerebral hemorrhage in comparison to patients who did not have COVID-19.
While previous research has noted an association between neurological disorders and COVID-19, lead study author Pardis Zarifkar, MD said the new study findings offer more clarity on the impact of COVID-19 on the incidence of neurological disease.
“These findings will help to inform our understanding of the long-term effect of COVID-19 on the body and the role that infections play in neurodegenerative diseases and stroke,” noted Dr. Zarifkar, who is affiliated with the Department of Neurology at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark.
(Editor's note: For a recent video interview with Pardis Zarifkar, MD, click here.)
The study authors also compared patients who tested positive for COVID-19 to patients with influenza or pneumonia and found similar elevated risks for the development of neurological diseases. However, when comparing COVID-19 to influenza and inpatients with pneumonia over the age of 80, the researchers noted a 1.7 times elevated risk of ischemic stroke for patients with COVID-19.
Can Generative AI Facilitate Simulated Contrast Enhancement for Prostate MRI?
January 14th 2025Deep learning synthesis of contrast-enhanced MRI from non-contrast prostate MRI sequences provided an average multiscale structural similarity index of 70 percent with actual contrast-enhanced prostate MRI in external validation testing from newly published research.
Can MRI Have an Impact with Fertility-Sparing Treatments for Endometrial and Cervical Cancers?
January 9th 2025In a literature review that includes insights from recently issued guidelines from multiple European medical societies, researchers discuss the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in facilitating appropriate patient selection for fertility-sparing treatments to address early-stage endometrial and cervical cancer.
Surveillance Breast MRI Associated with Lower Risks of Advanced Second Breast Cancers
January 8th 2025After propensity score matching in a study of over 3,000 women with a personal history of breast cancer, researchers found that surveillance breast MRI facilitated a 59 percent lower risk in advanced presentations of second breast cancers.
New Survey Explores Radiologist and Neurologist Comfort Level with AI Triage for Brain MRI
January 7th 2025Survey results revealed that 71 percent of clinicians preferred adjunctive AI in facilitating triage of brain MRI scans and 58 percent were comfortable utilizing AI triage without input from radiologists.