NEW YORK: Researchers have said young and otherwise healthy patients with coronavirus may have an increased risk of stroke even if they do not show any symptoms of the disease.

Published in the journal Neurosurgery, researchers at the Thomas Jefferson University in the US analyzed patients suffering from stroke from March 20 until April 10 at their institutions. The strokes they observed were unlike what they usually see.

“We were seeing patients in their 30s, 40s and 50s with massive strokes, the kind that we typically see in patients in their 70s and 80s,” said study researcher Pascal Jabbour from Thomas Jefferson University.

According to them, young people who may not know they have the coronavirus, are developing clots that cause a major stroke.

For the results, the researchers examined 14 patients who had come into their Neurointerventional room for stroke. Eight patients were male, six were female, 50 percent did not know they had COVID-19, while the remainder were already being treated for other symptoms of the disease when they had a stroke.

The findings also showed that patients with signs of stroke were delaying coming to the hospital for fear of getting infected with COVID-19.

(With inputs from Agencies)