Echocardiographic systolic pulmonary arterial pressure and mortality in coronavirus disease 2019 patients.

Abstract

We perfromed a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the echocardiographic systolic pulmonary arterial pressure (sPAP) difference between COVID-19 survivors (S) and nonsurvivors (NS). MEDLINE and Scopus databases were systematically searched for articles, published in English language, from inception through 15 May 2021 using the following Medical Subject Heading (MESH) terms: COVID-19 [Title/Abstract] AND pulmonary arterial pressure [Title/ Abstract] OR Echocardiography [Title/Abstract]. The difference of sPAP measurement obtained at transthoracic echocardiography between nonsurvivors and survivors was expressed as mean difference with the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) using a random-effect model. Nine studies, enrolling 788 patients (mean age 62.8 years old, 479,men) met the inclusion criteria and were included into the analysis. Using a randomeffect mode, sPAP was 11.8mmHg (95% CI, 6.60-16.97; P < 0.0001, I2 = 89.3%) higher in NS compared with S. Sensitivity analysis confirmed yielded results. COVID-19 NS had a higher sPAP compared with S, reinforcing previous observations demonstrating the critical role of RV function in determining the short-term outcome of COVID-19 patients.