What is it about?
COVID-19 can affect the heart, and problems of the right ventricle - the chamber that pumps blood to the lungs - are linked to worse outcomes. We invited patients who had survived severe COVID-19 without previous heart or lung disease to undergo a detailed heart ultrasound about two to three months after admission, using speckle-tracking, a technique that measures how well the heart muscle contracts. In 53 patients, standard measures were normal: no pulmonary hypertension and no evident right ventricular dysfunction. However, the more sensitive measure of right ventricular longitudinal strain was impaired in 42% of them, regardless of whether they had needed mechanical ventilation, and was worse than in healthy controls. None had heart failure symptoms.
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Why is it important?
Subtle damage to the right side of the heart may persist after severe COVID-19 even when conventional tests look normal and pulmonary pressure is not raised. Advanced echocardiography can reveal this hidden involvement, supporting closer follow-up of COVID-19 survivors and further studies on its long-term significance.
Perspectives
COVID-19 taught us that infections can leave footprints in organs far from where they started. This collaboration with cardiologists, intensivists and pulmonologists in Trieste was a good example of the multidisciplinary follow-up that patients recovering from severe infections deserve.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Impaired Right Ventricular Longitudinal Strain Without Pulmonary Hypertension in Patients Who Have Recovered From COVID-19, Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging, April 2021, Wolters Kluwer Health,
DOI: 10.1161/circimaging.120.012166.
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