Flow-Mediated Dilation Can be used as an Indicator for Assessing Severity and Deaths by Covid-19 at the Initial Hours of Hospitalization

Abstract

Assessment of Flow-Mediated Dilation (FMD) in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 will assist with regard to early identification of markers at the onset of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Therefore, the early evaluation of simple markers, obtained at the bedside before the most serious manifestations are already installed, can help health professionals to act preventively to save lives, direct care in the initial stage of infection, helping in the prognosis and diagnosis. Given the importance and relevance of this technique in this population at this time and the need to better understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19 as well as its damage to the endothelium, we performed an evaluation of FMD in different severity of COVID-19 in recently hospitalized patients. A total of 100 patients were enrolled in the study and were divided into two groups according to the severity of COVID- 19. The results provide new evidence that patients with COVID-19 classified as severe/critical have greater endothelial dysfunction and that FMD may be a simple marker, helping in the prognosis and diagnosis and, consequently, in the prevention of thrombotic events.