Abstract:
It is known that during the active course of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), myocardial injury has an established pathological base, while its myocardial injury post-recovery is still obscured.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal left atrial strain (LAS) using speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in COVID-19-recovered patients who are previously healthy without confounder comorbidities to detect the potential cardiac dysfunction. 200 patients were prospectively included and examined 4?12 weeks after recovery from COVID-19 infection. 137 participants with comorbidities or previous history of cardiopulmonary disease were excluded from the analysis. A total of 63 patients who fulfilled our inclusion criteria were recruited into two groups according to the presence or absence of persistent dyspnoea and exercise intolerance. Clinical, laboratory & comprehensive echocardiographic examinations were done for all.
We observed that 31.7% of the previously healthy individuals developed dyspnoea & exercise intolerance post-COVID-19 infection. There were significantly impaired LAS parameters in the symptomatic group (LA reservoir, contraction & conduit strain, 22.7%, -6.6% & -16.1% versus 40%, -12%, and ? 27% in the asymptomatic group with P < 0.000).
Only LA reservoir strain and LA stiffness can independently predict the development of dyspnoea & exercise intolerance post-COVID-19 at cut-off values of 30% & 24.5% respectively with a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 91%, P < 0.001. These impaired LAS parameters could explain the developed symptoms post-COVID-19 recovery, even before disturbed conventional diastolic echocardiographic parameters. LAS parameters are significantly associated with the developed exertional dyspnoea & exercise intolerance post-COVID-19. LA reservoir strain & LA stiffness could provide a simple, easily available tool that points to early LV diastolic dysfunction and may direct the therapy in this subset of the population.
Source: ZeinElabdeen SG, Sherif A, Kandil NT, Altabib AMO, Abdelrashid MA. Left atrial longitudinal strain analysis in long Covid-19 syndrome. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2023 Feb 14:1–6. doi: 10.1007/s10554-023-02801-5. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36786877; PMCID: PMC9927057. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9927057/ (Full text)