RT Journal Article
T1 Incidence, clinical characteristics, risk factors and outcomes of meningoencephalitis in patients with COVID-19.
A1 Fragiel, Marcos
A1 Miró, Òscar
A1 Llorens, Pere
A1 Jiménez, Sònia
A1 Piñera Salmerón, Pascual
A1 Burillo-Putze, Guillermo
A1 Martín, Alfonso
A1 Martín-Sánchez, Francisco Javier
A1 García Lamberechts, Eric Jorge
A1 Jacob, Javier
A1 Alquézar-Arbé, Aitor
A1 Llopis-Roca, Ferran
A1 Pedraza García, Jorge
A1 Calvo López, Ricardo
A1 Maza Vera, María Teresa
A1 Lucas-Imbernón, Francisco Javier
A1 González Martinez, Félix
A1 Juárez, Ricardo
A1 Expósito Rodriguez, Marcos
A1 Martinez Bautista, Beatriz Maria
A1 Niembro Valdés, Ana Patricia
A1 Sanchez Nicolas, Jose Andres
A1 Ferreras Amez, José María
A1 Porta-Etessam, Jesús
A1 Calvo, Elpidio
A1 González Del Castillo, Juan
A1 Spanish Investigators on Emergency Situations TeAm (SIESTA) network, 
K1 COVID-19
K1 Clinical characteristics
K1 Incidence
K1 Meningoencephalitis
K1 Outcome
K1 Risk factors
K1 SARS-Cov-2
AB We investigated the incidence, clinical characteristics, risk factors, and outcome of meningoencephalitis (ME) in patients with COVID-19 attending emergency departments (ED), before hospitalization. We retrospectively reviewed all COVID patients diagnosed with ME in 61 Spanish EDs (20% of Spanish EDs, COVID-ME) during the COVID pandemic. We formed two control groups: non-COVID patients with ME (non-COVID-ME) and COVID patients without ME (COVID-non-ME). Unadjusted comparisons between cases and controls were performed regarding 57 baseline and clinical characteristics and 4 outcomes. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biochemical and serologic findings of COVID-ME and non-COVID-ME were also investigated. We identified 29 ME in 71,904 patients with COVID-19 attending EDs (0.40‰, 95%CI=0.27-0.58). This incidence was higher than that observed in non-COVID patients (150/1,358,134, 0.11‰, 95%CI=0.09-0.13; OR=3.65, 95%CI=2.45-5.44). With respect to non-COVID-ME, COVID-ME more frequently had dyspnea and chest X-ray abnormalities, and neck stiffness was less frequent (OR=0.3, 95%CI=0.1-0.9). In 69.0% of COVID-ME, CSF cells were predominantly lymphocytes, and SARS-CoV-2 antigen was detected by RT-PCR in 1 patient. The clinical characteristics associated with a higher risk of presenting ME in COVID patients were vomiting (OR=3.7, 95%CI=1.4-10.2), headache (OR=24.7, 95%CI=10.2-60.1), and altered mental status (OR=12.9, 95%CI=6.6-25.0). COVID-ME patients had a higher in-hospital mortality than non-COVID-ME patients (OR=2.26; 95%CI=1.04-4.48), and a higher need for hospitalization (OR=8.02; 95%CI=1.19-66.7) and intensive care admission (OR=5.89; 95%CI=3.12-11.14) than COVID-non-ME patients. ME is an unusual form of COVID presentation (
YR 2021
FD 2021-03-09
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10668/17331
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10668/17331
LA en
DS RISalud
RD May 12, 2025