- Ramos-Araque, María;
- Siegler, James;
- Ribo, Marc;
- Requena, Manuel;
- López, Cristina;
- de Lera, Mercedes;
- Arenillas, Juan;
- Pérez, Isabel;
- Gómez-Vicente, Beatriz;
- Talavera, Blanca;
- Portela, Pere;
- Guillen, Ana;
- Urra, Xabier;
- Llull, Laura;
- Renú, Arturo;
- Nguyen, Thanh;
- Jillella, Dinesh;
- Nahab, Fadi;
- Nogueira, Raul;
- Haussen, Diogo;
- Then, Ryna;
- Thon, Jesse;
- Esparragoza, Luis;
- Hernández-Pérez, Maria;
- Bustamante, Alejandro;
- Mansour, Ossama;
- Megahed, Mohammed;
- Hassan, Tamer;
- Liebeskind, David;
- Hassan, Ameer;
- Bushnaq, Saif;
- Osman, Mohamed;
- Vazquez, Alejandro
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with a small but clinically significant risk of stroke, the cause of which is frequently cryptogenic. In a large multinational cohort of consecutive COVID-19 patients with stroke, we evaluated clinical predictors of cryptogenic stroke, short-term functional outcomes and in-hospital mortality among patients according to stroke etiology. METHODS: We explored clinical characteristics and short-term outcomes of consecutively evaluated patients 18 years of age or older with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from 31 hospitals in 4 countries (3/1/20-6/16/20). RESULTS: Of the 14.483 laboratory-confirmed patients with COVID-19, 156 (1.1%) were diagnosed with AIS. Sixty-one (39.4%) were female, 84 (67.2%) white, and 88 (61.5%) were between 60 and 79 years of age. The most frequently reported etiology of AIS was cryptogenic (55/129, 42.6%), which was associated with significantly higher white blood cell count, c-reactive protein, and D-dimer levels than non-cryptogenic AIS patients (p