ABSTRACT
Severe infectious disease caused by acute respiratory syndrome, COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), spread rapidly worldwide, infecting several million people. According to scientific data, the disease develops through several different stages. After 2–4 days of infection and disease development, the lower respiratory tract is attacked and in a relatively short time interstitial pneumonia develops in a certain number of patients (with genetic predisposition between 5 and 10% of cases). Patients infected with COVID-19 have symptoms such as very high temperatures, fever, persistent cough, joint and bone pain, in some cases diarrhea, and loss of appetite and taste. Disease monitoring should primarily include erythrocyte sedimentation rate, leukocyte count, leukocyte count formula, C-reactive protein (CRP), determination of troponin I (hsTnI) and T (cTnT) levels, N-terminal pro-B natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), fibrinogen, and D-dimer level. Previous studies have shown that in pneumonia developed from chronic and acute obstructive pulmonary infections, high levels of D-dimer are observed in patients, and it is suggested that this parameter can be used as a specific prognostic biomarker, and the values higher than > 1000 ng/ml represent increased risk factors for mortality in patients with COVID-19. Because vascular thrombosis affects the promotion of an unfavorable clinical progression for the patient, the identification of early and accurate predictors of the worst outcome seems to be essential for timely and appropriate anticoagulant treatment in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Overall, these data suggest that acute myocardial damage, or heart failure, may be an important indicator of disease severity and adverse prognosis in patients with COVID-19. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.