Researchers have found a link between myocardial injury and a higher risk of death among patients hospitalized in the United States for COVID-19, sharing their analysis in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The team tracked data from more than 2,700 patients admitted to one of five New York City hospitals with a confirmed case of COVID-19. All patients were treated from Feb. 27 to April 12, 2020, and the median patient age was 66 years old. In addition, approximately 25% of the cohort had a history of heart disease, including coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

Overall, troponin levels in the patients’ blood revealed that even minor myocardial injuries were associated with a lower likelihood of being discharged from the hospital. And, the authors added, the risk of death is up to three times higher when the myocardial injury was severe enough.   

“We found that 36% of patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 had elevated troponin levels—which represents heart injury—and were at higher risk of death,” lead author Anu Lala, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a statement. “These findings, which are consistent with reports from China and Europe, are important for clinicians. If COVID-19-positive patients arrive in the emergency room and their initial test results show troponin levels are elevated, doctors may be able to better triage these patients and watch over them more closely, but this remains a testable hypothesis.”