Cardiac sequelae after coronavirus disease 2019 recovery: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been implicated in a wide spectrum of cardiac manifestations following the acute phase of the disease. OBJECTIVES: To assess the range of cardiac sequelae after COVID-19 recovery. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Embase, Scopus (inception through 17 February 2021) and Google scholar (2019 through 17 February 2021). STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Prospective and retrospective studies, case reports and case series. PARTICIPANTS: Adult patients assessed for cardiac manifestations after COVID-19 recovery. EXPOSURE: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection diagnosed by PCR. METHODS: Systematic review. RESULTS: Thirty-five studies (fifteen prospective cohort, seven case reports, five cross-sectional, four case series, three retrospective cohort and one ambidirectional cohort) evaluating cardiac sequelae in 52 609 patients were included. Twenty-nine studies used objective cardiac assessments, mostly cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) in 16 studies, echocardiography in 15, electrocardiography (ECG) in 16 and cardiac biomarkers in 18. Most studies had a fair risk of bias. The median time from diagnosis/recovery to cardiac assessment was 48 days (1-180 days). Common short-term cardiac abnormalities (<3 months) included increased T1 (proportion: 30%), T2 (16%), pericardial effusion (15%) and late gadolinium enhancement (11%) on CMR, with symptoms such as chest pain (25%) and dyspnoea (36%). In the medium term (3-6 months), common changes included reduced left ventricular global longitudinal strain (30%) and late gadolinium enhancement (10%) on CMR, diastolic dysfunction (40%) on echocardiography and elevated N-terminal proB-type natriuretic peptide (18%). In addition, COVID-19 survivors had higher risk (risk ratio 3; 95% CI 2.7-3.2) of developing heart failure, arrythmias and myocardial infarction. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 appears to be associated with persistent/de novo cardiac injury after recovery, particularly subclinical myocardial injury in the earlier phase and diastolic dysfunction later. Larger well-designed and controlled studies with baseline assessments are needed to better measure the extent of cardiac injury and its clinical impact.

Cardiac complications during the active phase of COVID-19: review of the current evidence.

Growing reports since the beginning of the pandemic and till date describe increased rates of cardiac complications (CC) in the active phase of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). CC commonly observed include myocarditis/myocardial injury, arrhythmias and heart failure, with an incidence reaching about a quarter of hospitalized patients in some reports. The increased incidence of CC raise questions about the possible heightened susceptibility of patients with cardiac disease to develop severe COVID-19, and whether the virus itself is involved in the pathogenesis of CC. The wide array of CC seems to stem from multiple mechanisms, including the ability of the virus to directly enter cardiomyocytes, and to indirectly damage the heart through systemic hyperinflammatory and hypercoagulable states, endothelial injury of the coronary arteries and hypoxemia. The induced CC seem to dramatically impact the prognosis of COVID-19, with some studies suggesting over 50% mortality rates with myocardial damage, up from ~ 5% overall mortality of COVID-19 alone. Thus, it is particularly important to investigate the relation between COVID-19 and heart disease, given the major effect on morbidity and mortality, aiming at early detection and improving patient care and outcomes. In this article, we review the growing body of published data on the topic to provide the reader with a comprehensive and robust description of the available evidence and its implication for clinical practice.

Does this patient have COVID-19? A practical guide for the internist.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is currently causing a pandemic and will likely persist in endemic form in the foreseeable future. Physicians need to correctly approach this new disease, often representing a challenge in terms of differential diagnosis. Although COVID-19 lacks specific signs and symptoms, we believe internists should develop specific skills to recognize the disease, learning its 'semeiotic'. In this review article, we summarize the key clinical features that may guide in differentiating a COVID-19 case, requiring specific testing, from upper respiratory and/or influenza-like illnesses of other aetiology. We consider two different clinical settings, where availability of the different diagnostic strategies differs widely: outpatient and inpatient. Our reasoning highlights how challenging a balanced approach to a patient with fever and flu-like symptoms can be. At present, clinical workup of COVID-19 remains a hard task to accomplish. However, knowledge of the natural history of the disease may aid the internist in putting common and unspecific symptoms into the correct clinical context.