Left ventricular global longitudinal strain in low cardiac risk outpatients who recently recovered from Coronavirus disease 2019

ABSTRACT

Background and Aim: The cardiac sequelae of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a worldwide global pandemic, are still uncertain, particularly in the asymptomatic, low cardiac risk outpatient population. This study aims to evaluate the asymptomatic, low cardiac risk out-patient population who recently recovered from COVID-19, using 2-D left ventricular-global longitudinal strain (LV-GLS) proven to capable of detecting subclinical myocardial injury. Method(s) Out of 305 COVID-19 positive patients, 70 asymptomatic out-patients were determined as the study group and 70 age and sex-matched healthy adults as the control group. The echocardiographic examination did perform with the Philips IE33 system, and LV-GLS was measured using commercially available software QLAB 9 (cardiac motion quantification;Philips Medical Systems). The absolute value of LV-GLS <= 18 did deem to be impaired LV-GLS. Result(s) The absolute values of LV-GLS were statistically significantly lower in the COVID-19 group than in healthy controls (19.17+/-2.65 vs. 20.07+/-2.19, p=0.03). The correlation between having recovered from COVID-19 and impaired LV-GLS (<=18) did detect with the Pearson correlation test (p=0.02). Having recovered from COVID-19 was found as a predictor for detecting impaired LV-GLS (<=18) in the multivariable logistic regression analysis (odds ratio, 0.133 (0.038-0.461);95% CI, p=0.001). Conclusion(s) This study suggests that COVID-19 can cause subclinical LV dysfunction detected by LV-GLS during early recovery even in a population of patients at low cardiac risk, asymptomatic, and recovered with home quarantine. The study findings indicate the long-term cardiovascular follow-up of these patients may be more important than thought.