Long‐term prognostic impact of subclinical myocardial dysfunction in patients recovered from COVID‐19

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundCardiovascular sequelae may occur in patients recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). Recent studies have detected a considerable incidence of subclinical myocardial dysfunction—assessed with speckle‐tracking echocardiography—and of long‐COVID symptoms in these patients. This study aimed to define the long‐term prognostic role of subclinical myocardial dysfunction and long‐COVID condition in patients recovered from COVID‐19 pneumonia.MethodsWe prospectively followed up 110 patients hospitalized at our institution due to COVID‐19 pneumonia in April 2020 and then recovered from SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. A 7‐month clinical and echocardiographic evaluation was performed, followed by a 21‐month clinical follow‐up. The primary outcome was major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), a composite of myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure hospitalization, and all‐cause mortality.ResultsA subclinical myocardial dysfunction—defined as an impairment of left ventricular global longitudinal strain (≥−18%)—was identified at a 7‐month follow‐up in 37 patients (34%), was associated with an increased risk of long‐term MACE with a good discriminative power (area under the curve: .73) and resulted in a strong independent predictor of extended MACE in multivariate regression analyses. Long‐COVID condition was not associated with a worse long‐term prognosis, instead.ConclusionsIn patients recovered from COVID‐19 pneumonia, a subclinical myocardial dysfunction is present in one‐third of the whole population at 7‐month follow‐up and is associated with a higher risk of MACE at long‐term follow‐up. Speckle‐tracking echocardiography is a promising tool to optimize the risk‐stratification in patients recovered from COVID‐19 pneumonia, while the definition of a long‐COVID condition has no prognostic relevance.