Headache is the most common neurological symptom in COVID-19, reported in 6.5 to 34% of patients. Few studies have analyzed its characteristics, and some of them included cases without laboratory confirmation or reported only critical patients. We aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 associated headache in laboratory-confirmed cases. We conducted a retrospective evaluation of patients with COVID-19 and neurological symptoms. Patients who reported headache answered an interview about its clinical characteristics. Twenty-four patients with COVID-19 associated headache completed the interview. Mean age of patients was 53.8 (standard deviation-17.44), and 14 out of 24 (58.3%) were male. The majority (75%) had no previous history of headache. Fever was documented in 19 out of the 24 patients (79.1%). Headache was predominantly bifrontal or holocranial, in pressure, during hours, worsening with cough or physical activity. COVID-19 headache tends to appear in the first days of symptoms, be either frontal or holocranial and last for days. The quality of pain in pressure and the worsening with cough or physical activity were reported in most cases. We have not found any characteristic that could differentiate COVID-19 associated headache from other causes of headache, possibly because of its multifactorial mechanism.

This report focuses on a fatality involving severe dengue fever and melioidosis in a 28-year-old truck driver residing in Pacoti in northeastern Brazil. He exhibited long-term respiratory symptoms (48 days) and went through a wide-ranging clinical investigation at three hospitals, after initial clinical diagnoses of pneumonia, visceral leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, and fungal sepsis. After death, Burkholderia pseudomallei was isolated in a culture of ascitic fluid. Dengue virus type 1 was detected by polymerase chain reaction in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF); this infection was the cause of death. This description reinforces the need to consider melioidosis among the reported differential diagnoses of community-acquired infections where both melioidosis and dengue fever are endemic.

Introduction: First-pass effect (FPE) is associated with improved clinical outcomes and reduced mortality in mechanical thrombectomy (MT) for large vessel occlusion strokes (LVOS). However, FPE is achieved in only 30-40% of patients with the current devices. The RapidPulse TM Cyclic Aspiration System (RP) is a novel technology consisting of a valve box that precisely cycles pressure from full to no vacuum multiple times per second adding kinetic energy to the suction forces. Initial clinical evaluation suggests that the system can achieve FPE rates in the 70% range. We aim to evaluate the RP as a frontline approach in LVOS. Methods: Prospective, multicenter, open-label, core lab adjudicated, two-arm study comparing the safety and efficacy of the RP System with non-randomized retrospective controls who were consecutively treated at the study sites based on similar eligibility criteria. Patients with LVOS involving the anterior or posterior circulations in whom the target lesion could be treated with the Medtronic React 71 aspiration catheter up to 24 hours from stroke onset were included in the RP arm. Controls consisted of comparable patients treated with 070-072 ID catheters. The primary outcome was the rate of FPE (complete/near reperfusion [mTICI ≥2c] after a single pass). Secondary outcomes include frontline technical success (defined as mTICI ≥2b after final device pass with no rescue therapy), final mTICI after all passes, symptomatic ICH, device-related complications, the proportion of patients achieving a modified Rankin Scale score of 0-2 at 90 days, and all-cause 90-day mortality. The study will enroll a maximum of 100 participants in the RP and 200 in the control arm at 5 centers in Spain, Turkey, Denmark, Latvia, and Brazil. Results: Final results will be presented at the conference. Conclusion: RapidPulseFS is the first prospective clinical trial aiming to compare cyclic versus standard aspiration technologies. This novel device may allow clinicians to achieve faster and better reperfusion while significantly reducing the disposable device costs associated with treating LVOS (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05122637).

Background: Identification of large vessel occlusion (LVO) is paramount in the urgent evaluation of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Emergent interpretation of large and high-complexity data sets, however, may impose strains upon imaging and clinical workflows, motivating development of fast and accurate computer-aided approaches to facilitate LVO detection in the emergency setting. This study investigates the performance of a fully automated LVO detection platform in a mixed cohort of stroke subjects with and without LVO on head and neck CT angiography (CTA). Methods: CTA from two cerebrovascular trials were enriched with cases from eleven global sites. Imaging and clinical variables were balanced between populations including in LVO positivity and across demographic and imaging environments to the extent achievable. Independent and fully blinded review for intracranial ICA or MCA M1 LVO was performed by two subspecialty neuroradiologists. A novel, user-independent imaging analysis application ( RAPID-LVO , iSchemaview inc) was used to predict LVO presence, location, and overall performance relative to reader consensus. Any discordance between readers was adjudicated by a blinded tertiary reader with subspecialty training. Sensitivity, specificity, and receiver-operating characteristics were determined by an independent statistician. Performance thresholds were set a priori, including a lower bound of the 95% CI of sensitivity and specificity of ≥0.8 at mean times-to-notification <3.5 minutes. Results: 217 CTA (median age 65.5, 53% male, 109 LVO(+)) were included. Lower confidence limits of sensitivity and specificity exceeded 90% (sensitivity 0.963, 95% CI 0.909-0.986; specificity 0.981, 95% CI 0.935-0.995), surpassing pre-specified performance benchmarks. Subgroup analyses revealed no decrement in performance relative to subject age or sex, vendor systems, or location of the examination within or outside the United States. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was 0.99 (95% CI: 0.971-0.999) and average time-to-notification was 3.18 minutes. Conclusion: RAPID-LVO offers fast, highly accurate, and fully user-independent large vessel occlusion detection across all tested clinical and imaging environments.

Prion diseases are an important cause of rapidly progressive dementias. Among them, the most common is sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). It is a rare and incurable disease, with rapid progression to death. Objective: To describe the diagnostic approach of a patient with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Methods: The diagnosis is established through the clinical picture associated with characteristic changes in the brain magnetic resonance imaging, the electroencephalogram, and analysis of specific changes in the cerebrospinal fluid. Results: The present report describes the case of a 53-year-old patient in the city of Fortaleza-CE. The diagnosis was made based on the clinical condition and through diagnostic tests, including 14-3-3 protein and RT QUIC analysis. Differential diagnosis was performed with other rapidly progressive causes, such as infectious and immune-mediated diseases. Conclusions: The diagnosis of probable sporadic CJD was established.