- A new study finds that about 50 percent of people hospitalized with true COVID-19 have evidence of heart damage.
- Researchers studied patients with COVID-19 discharged from care to June 2020 from six UK-based hospitals. The study examined 148 patients.
- Research
published in July last year people who experienced a moderate form of COVID-19 detected heart issues.
Millions of people in the United States have contracted SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID 19, with many returning to full health within weeks of becoming ill. But for some patients, the side effects of the disease can cause long-term health issues.
A new study finds that about 50 percent of people hospitalized with true COVID-19 show evidence of heart damage – even months after recovering from the disease.
Patients with abnormal troponin levels were offered an MRI scan of the heart after discharge. The results were compared with those from a control group of patients without COVID-19 and from 40 additional healthy volunteers.
Researchers studied patients with COVID-19 who were discharged from care to June 2020 from six UK-based hospitals.
The study studied 148 people and is the largest to study patients with COVID-19 who have elevated troponin levels. Elevated troponin indicates potential heart problems.
“Troponin is essentially a measure of heart muscle damage,” Dr. Andrew M. Freeman, a cardiologist at National Jewish Health in Colorado, told Healthline. “So when a heart muscle dies, such as a heart attack or marked inflammation, and for whatever reason, the muscle cells explode, they release an enzyme called troponin.”
Freeman explained that when someone comes to the emergency room with chest pain, hospital staff often test their blood for troponin to see if there has been a heart attack or heart muscle damage.
“Elevated troponin levels are associated with worse outcomes in COVID-19 patients,” Dr. Marianna Fontana, the study’s lead researcher and professor of cartography at University College London, said in a statement.
During severe COVID-19 infection, there may be a direct impact on the heart, Fontana said.
“It’s hard to know how the heart can be damaged,” she continued. “But MRI scans of the heart can identify different patterns of injury, which may allow us to make more accurate diagnoses and focus on more effective treatments.”
Research
Researchers in the study used cardiac MRI to study the hearts of 100 German nationals who contracted COVID-19.
Of these participants, 78 showed heart issues, and 60 had persistent heart inflammation.
According to the study, the findings were independent from the time elapsed after initial diagnosis, previous conditions, or the severity of the disease and the overall course.
Making the difficult decisions to link specifically to COVID-19 is that the people most at risk for major COVID are those with a chronic medical illness that is often specifically related to heart. Fontana said those conditions include diabetes, elevated blood pressure, and obesity.
Dr. Rachel-Maria Brown Talaska, director of patient cardiopulmonary services at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said in addition to the previous conditions prescribed by Fontana, people with severe COVID-19 disease are also prone to artery disease. coronary and congestive heart failure.
“Most patients in the hospital with COVID-19 have a chronic medical condition,” she said.
The left ventricle of the heart, the chamber responsible for pumping blood oxygen to all parts of the body, was normal in nearly 90 percent of the 148 study participants, according to the study.
However, scarring or injury to the heart muscles themselves was present in about half of the participants.
The pattern of scarring or injury arose from inflammation in 39 patients and from ischemic heart disease, including infarction (death of cardiac arrest), in 32 patients, or both in 9 patients. Twelve participants showed evidence of chronic heart inflammation.
“Inflammation-related injuries and heart fractures are common in COVID-19 patients with elevated troponin discharge from hospital,” Fontana said in a statement. “But (it is) to a small extent and it has little effect on the work of the heart. ”
She concluded that “further work is needed to investigate this further.”
According to Dr. Michael Goyfman, director of clinical cartography at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills in New York, there is no evidence that COVID-19 causes more heart damage than other non-existent diseases.
“The evidence so far shows that COVID does not cause too much heart damage compared to other diseases,” he said. “Viral infections can, in general, cause inflammation of the heart, and because COVID is a viral disease, it can too. This level is very similar to other diseases. “
The numbers are increased because “COVID is so common,” Goyfman continued. “There is no evidence that COVID causes too many heart attacks or other viral illnesses. ”
Freeman believes that the number of people in the study was too small to give a clear picture of how COVID-19 may affect the heart.
“It’s always nice to see what other people are seeing and publish that data to share knowledge with the world,” Freeman said. “But I would agree that the sample size is relatively small. ”
He noted that if you look at the hundreds of thousands of people who have had COVID-19, even in the United States, “you know that a sample of 148 won’t give you much movement information.”
New research from the UK finds that half of the study participants in hospital with severe COVID-19 showed heart damage.
Of 148 participants, researchers found heart damage caused by inflammation in 39 of these patients but stressed that the majority of participants had chronic illness before COVID-19.
Experts say the small study size and lack of evidence that COVID-19 was directly responsible for heart damage are major limitations for the study’s findings.