May Recovered COVID-19 Patients Have Impaired Myocardial Work?

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are sequelae in left ventricular (LV) systolic function by comparing LV function in fully recovered COVID-19 patients with pulmonary involvement and healthy controls without COVID-19 by conventional echocardiography and myocardial work. Materials and Methods: 55 healthy volunteers and 61 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 with pulmonary in-volvement were included. Patients did not need non-invasive or invasive mechanical ventilation support during hospitalization. Patients were included in the study if they were asymptomatic for at least six months after recov-ery from COVID-19. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was performed. Demographic and clinical characteris-tics and laboratory test results were collected. Clinical characteristics, blood tests, TTE, speckle-tracking echocar-diography (STE) and myocardial work results were compared. Results: No statistically significant differences were found in the longitudinal strain parameters of the LV among the study groups. The patient group exhibited notably reduced levels of global work index (GWI), global con-structed work (GCW), and global work efficiency (GWE). The patient group exhibited a notably elevated global wasted work (GWW). Conclusions: The group of fully recovered asymptomatic COVID-19 patients with pulmonary involvement showed significantly lower values for GWI, GCW, and GWE, while GWW showed a significantly higher value. Myocardial work parameters may be useful in determining myocardial sequelae.