New Onset Seizures in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients; A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: Seizures in COVID-19 patients continue to be a common reason for consulting the neurology service in the inpatient setting. This paper assesses the frequency of new onset seizures in adult hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Method: PubMed and EMBASE were searched, with fifteen cohort studies identified to calculate the primary outcome, which was the frequency of new onset seizures in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. An inverse variance meta-analysis of single proportions with a random effects model was applied to these cohort studies to calculate the primary outcome. Risk of bias in individual studies was assessed using the 10-item risk of bias tool for prevalence studies. Results: The meta-analysis revealed a frequency of .71% (95% confidential interval: .32-1.25, I-2 = 89%, 147/28242 patients) for acute symptomatic seizures in patients with COVID-19. For secondary outcomes, the risk of seizures in patients who had EEG completed was 8.49% (95% confidential interval:.62-24.07, I-2 = 14%, 44/535 patients). Slightly less than half of patients with COVID-19 and seizures were reported to have acute imaging abnormalities (45.7%) with acute vascular insults being commonly reported. Only a small percentage of COVID-19 patients with seizures (2.8%) met the criteria for COVID-19 encephalitis as determined by the international encephalitis consortium. Conclusion: The frequency of seizures in COVID-19 was.71% (95% confidential interval: .32-1.25). Slightly less than half of COVID-19 patients had head imaging abnormalities as a complication of COVID-19 infection. Only a small percentage of patients with seizures and COVID-19 met the criteria for COVID-19 encephalitis.