Clinical and Electroencephalographic Characteristics in Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infection Treated in a High Complexity Hospital in Bogotá – Colombia
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INTRODUCTION: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been an unprecedented challenging event for the healthcare system worldwide. OBJECTIVE: To describe the clinical and electroencephalographic characteristics of a group of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. METHODOLOGY: An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 attended at the Clínica San Rafael University Hospital, in the city of Bogotá, Colombia, was conducted. RESULTS: We identified 29 patients. The mean age was 55.2 years (47.6-62.7); 58.6% were men. The indications of the electroencephalogram (EEG) were: suspicion of non-convulsive status epilepticus (31%), epileptic seizures (27.6%), multifactorial encephalopathy (17.2%), hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (13.8%) and rapidly progressive dementia, alteration of their state of consciousness and history of epilepsy (3.4% each). 80% of the EEGs showed abnormal findings characterized mostly by slowing of generalized background activity in 60% (one of them with three-phase waves), followed by epileptic activity, focal slowing and absence of electrocortical activity demonstrable in the clinical context of brain death (10%, 6.7%, 3.3%, respectively). CONCLUSION: The EEG did not show a typical pattern in patients with COVID-19 infection, however, if it is possible to identify the presence of encephalopathic involvement, brain death, focal lesions and make differential diagnosis with non-convulsive status epilepticus.
Electroencefalografía, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2electroencephalography, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2
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