A large nationwide study based on all COVID-19 patients in Sweden performed at Umeå University, concludes that the risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke is three-fold increased the first two weeks following COVID-19. The study was published in The Lancet.

"COVID-19 is a complex disease that affects many organs, and we therefore aimed to determine if COVID-19 is an acute risk factor for acute myocardial infarction and stroke", comments Anne-Marie Fors Connolly, MIMS Clinical Research Fellow, a principal investigator at the Dept. of Clinical Microbiology, and responsible for the study.

The study is based on 86 742 COVID-19 patients and 348 481 control individuals, and at the time of acceptance for publication in The Lancet, it was the biggest study of its kind to determine the association between acute myocardial infarction and stroke following COVID-19. In the study, the researchers compared the occurrence of myocardial infarction and stroke in COVID-19 patients with the control individuals during the study period 1st of February to 14th of September 2020. Using two powerful statistical methods, the risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke was calculated following COVID disease onset.

"We found a three-fold increased risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke in the first two weeks following COVID-19 using both statistical methods, and even after adjusting for known risk factors for acute myocardial infarction and stroke such as comorbidities, age, gender and socio-economic factors", adds Osvaldo Fonseca Rodriguez, epidemiologist at the Dept. of Epidemiology and Global Health and Clinical Microbiology, and co-first author of the study with Ioannis Katsoularis.

Read the full article on the MIMS website: http://www.mims.umu.se/news-events/2039-new-publication-from-anne-marie-fors-connolly-increased-risk-of-acute-myocardial-infarction-and-stroke-following-covid-19.html