Breathlessness among patients with long COVID may be a sign of heart damage
Patients who are still short of breath months after otherwise recovering from COVID-19 may have suffered significant heart damage, according to new data presented during the EuroEcho 2021 conference.
The study’s authors evaluated 66 patients without previous heart or lung disease who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in March or April 2020. The average patient age was 50 years old, and 67% were men.
One year after hospital discharge, all patients underwent spirometry, chest CT, cardiac ultrasound and a newer imaging technique called myocardial work so that clinicians could study their recovery from the infection. Overall, patients with persistent dyspnea were significantly associated with abnormal heart function.
“The findings could help to explain why some patients with long COVID still experience breathlessness one year later and indicate that it might be linked to a decrease in heart performance,” study author Maria-Luiza Luchian, MD, of University Hospital Brussels in Belgium, said in a prepared statement.
Luchian also said myocardial work showed potential to be “a new echocardiographic tool for early identification of heart function abnormalities in patients with long COVID-19.”
“Future studies including different COVID-19 variants and the impact of vaccination are needed to confirm our results on the long-term evolution and possible cardiac consequences of this disease,” she added.
More information on EuroEcho 2021, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology, is available here.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.