Background COVID-19 has caused considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide and cardiac involvement has been reported during infection. The short-term cardiac outcome in survivors of COVID-19 is not known. Objective To examine the heart of patients who survived COVID-19 and to compare the cardiac outcome between patients who recovered from mild-to-moderate or severe illness. Methods With use of ECG and echocardiography, we examined the heart of 105 patients who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and were consecutively recruited after hospital discharge while attending follow-up visits. Survivors of COVID-19 were compared with 105 matched controls. We also compared the cardiac outcome and lung ultrasound scan between COVID-19 patients who had mild-to-moderate or severe illness. Results Cardiac data were collected a median of 41 days from the first detection of COVID-19. Symptoms were present in a low percentage of patients. In comparison with matched controls, no considerable structural or functional differences were observed in the heart of survivors of COVID-19. Lung ultrasound scan detected significantly greater residual pulmonary involvement in COVID-19 patients who had recovered from severe than mild-to-moderate illness. No significant differences were detected in ECG tracings nor were found in the left and right ventricular function of patients who had recovered from mild-to-moderate or severe illness. Conclusions In a short-term follow-up, no abnormalities were identified in the heart of survivors of COVID-19, nor cardiac differences were detected between patients who had different severity of illness. With the limitations of a cross-sectional study, these findings suggest that patients who recover from COVID-19 do not have considerable cardiac sequelae. Graphic abstract Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00392-020-01800-z.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, echocardiography, Lung ultrasound, Diastolic function, Systolic function, Tissue-Doppler imaging, 【초록키워드】 Hospitalized, cross-sectional, severity, Infection, lung, outcome, ECG, echocardiography, cross-sectional study, heart, Patient, morbidity and mortality, Follow-up, patients, COVID-19 patients, cardiac, COVID-19 patient, Mild-to-moderate, matched controls, severity of illness, Abstract, significant difference, no significant differences, supplementary material, hospital discharge, pulmonary involvement, 105 patients, Abnormalities, limitation, follow-up visits, abnormality, survivor, objective, controls, Result, greater, collected, examined, caused, significantly, recruited, reported, median, functional, 105 patient, patients who survived, ventricular, with COVID-19, 【제목키워드】 outcome, survivor,