Research

In this prospective observational cohort study with rapid data gathering and near real-time analysis, the authors characterised the clinical features of patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in the United Kingdom during the growth phase of the first wave of the outbreak. Patients were enrolled in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC) World Health Organisation (WHO) Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK (CCP-UK) study, and risk factors associated with mortality in hospital were explored.

Immunosuppression and immunomodulation are valuable therapeutic approaches for managing neuroimmunological diseases. In the present COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians must deal with the question of whether immunotherapy should currently be initiated or discontinued in neurological patients.

In this paper, the authors systematically analysed lung tissue samples from 38 patients who died from COVID-19 in two hospitals in northern Italy between Feb 29 and March 24 2020.

In this paper, just published in Lancet, the authors performed a dose-escalation, single-centre, open-label, non-randomised, phase 1 trial of a recombinant adenovirus type-5 (Ad5) vectored COVID-19 vaccine in Wuhan, China.

In this paper, the authors investigated the effects of physical distance, face masks, and eye protection on virus transmission in healthcare and non-healthcare settings.

From the Spanish Society of Neurology, it is our pleasure to share with our European colleagues the Handbook on COVID-19 management for Neurologists.

On June 3, we published in the Breaking News section of this site the article entitled “Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis” previously published in Lancet. On June 13, the article was retracted by three of the four authors.

In this case series, the authors systematically assessed the presence of deep vein thrombosis among patients with severe COVID-19 in an intensive care unit (ICU) in France. They prospectively performed a venous ultrasonogram of the legs in all patients on admission to ICU and repeated the test after 48 hours if the first examination was normal. All patients received standard anticoagulant prophylaxis at hospital admission.

In this paper, recently published in Lancet, the authors report the findings of autopsies of six patients (four men and two women, aged 58–82 years) who died from COVID-19 in April 2020 in Munich, Germany. The period from onset of symptoms to admission ranged from 2–10 days.

In this open-label, multicentre, randomised clinical trial, recently published in JAMA, the authors evaluate the efficacy and adverse effects of convalescent plasma therapy for patients with COVID-19.

This review, recently published in JAMA Neurology, serves to summarise available information regarding coronaviruses in the nervous system, identifies potential tissue targets and routes of entry of SARS-CoV-2 into the central nervous system, describes the range of clinical neurological complications that have been reported thus far in COVID-19, and their potential pathogenesis.

One of the immediate and ongoing neurological challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic is the management of patients who are undergoing immunotherapy for existing neuroimmunological disease.

In this nice paper recently published in the European Journal of Neurology, the authors systematically reviewed available evidence for reports of neurological signs and symptoms in COVID‐19 patients to identify cases with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection or immune‐mediated reaction in the nervous system.

Transcranial pulse stimulation (NPS), a new ultrasound based brain stimulation technique, is reported in this comprehensive original article. Beisteiner et al. describe the technical details as well as a clinical study on 35 patients with Alzheimers disease. NPS showed overall improvement lasting up to three month.

A double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled phase II study of adjunctive cenobamate in adults with uncontrolled focal epilepsy showed high rates of total seizure-freedom over 12 weeks.