Acute Encephalopathy in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19

Infection with SARS-CoV-2 or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronarvirus type 2 was highlighted in December 2019 in the city of Wuhan in China, responsible for an pandemic evolution since March 11, 2020. The infection affects all ages of life, although affecting children in a very small proportion of cases. The typical presentation of the disease combines fever (98%), cough (76%), myalgia and asthenia (18%) as well as leukopenia (25%) and lymphopenia (63%). Upper airway involvement rare. The main clinical presentation requiring hospitalization of infected patients is that of atypical pneumonia which may require critical care management (27%), and progress to an acute respiratory distress syndrome (67%) involving life-threatening conditions in almost 25% of patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Other organ damage have been reported, mainly concerning kidney damage (29%) which may require renal replacement therapy in approximately 17% of patients. Neurological damage has been very rarely studied, yet reported in 36% of cases in a study including patients of varying severity. Finally, the mortality associated with this emerging virus is high in patients for whom critical care management is necessary, reported in 62% of patients. We therefore propose a prospective observational study which aim at reporting the prevalence of acute encephalopathy at initial management in Critical/Intensive care or Neurocritical care , to report its morbidity and mortality and to identify prognostic factors.