Abstract #1905

Blood-brain barrier breakdown in COVID-19 ICU survivors: a preliminary study

Wen Shi¹, Dengrong Jiang², Hannah Rando³, Shivalika Khanduja³, Zixuan Lin², Kaisha Hazel², George Pottanat², Ebony Jones², Cuimei Xu², Doris D.M. Lin², Sevil Yasar⁴, Sung-Min Cho⁵, and Hanzhang Lu^1,2

¹Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Department of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Infectious disease, COVID-19COVID-19 affects multiple organ systems in the acute phase, however, limited knowledge is known about the long-term impact on the brain following COVID-19 pneumonia, especially for those severe COVID-19 ICU survivors. Here, we used a water-extraction-with-phase-contrast-arterial-spin-tagging (WEPCAST) MRI which can non-invasively measure BBB permeability to water. The results showed significantly higher permeability-surface-area product (PS) in COVID-19 ICU survivors, which provided preliminary evidence that there was a BBB breakdown in COVID-19 ICU survivors at 4 months after initial infection.

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