A key update: 1 year later, no signs of long-term heart damage among college athletes who had COVID-19

College athletes with a history of COVID-19 appear to fully recover and show no signs of long-term cardiac issues after one year, according to new findings published in Circulation.[1]

The study’s authors explored data from the Outcomes Registry for Cardiac Conditions in Athletes, a patient registry originally launched by the American Heart Association (AHA) and American Medical Society for Sports Medicine in early 2021. Their analysis included more than 3,500 college athletes from 45 different institutions. All patients had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis from September 2020 to November 2021.

Definite or probably COVID-related myocardial or myopericardial involvement was initially seen in just 0.6% of athletes, and they were all allowed to return to their sport after restricting exercise as recommended by their physicians. The median duration of exercise restriction was 86 days, and repeat cardiac imaging was performed on 71% of the impacted athletes before they returned.

After a median follow-up period of 1.12 years, there were a total of two adverse cardiovascular events among patients included in the original analysis — in both cases, the patients did not initially shown signs of COVID-related myocardial or myopercardial involvement. One event was a sudden cardiac arrest case not at all related to COVID-19, while the other event was an isolated atrial fibrillation incident that was “possibly” related to COVID-19.

“Our data fill an important knowledge gap and suggest that the risk of clinically relevant adverse cardiovascular outcomes through more than one year of follow-up is low,” wrote first author Bradley J. Petek, MD, a cardiology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues.