Abstract
Objectives: Describe the incidence of cardiac complications in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in Australia. Design: Observational cohort study. Setting: Twenty-one (21) Australian hospitals. Participants: Consecutive patients aged ≥18 years admitted to hospital with laboratory confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Main outcome measures: Incidence of cardiac complications. Results: Six-hundred-and-forty-four (644) hospitalised patients (62.5±20.1 yo, 51.1% male) with COVID-19 were enrolled in the study. Overall in-hospital mortality was 14.3%. Twenty (20) (3.6%) patients developed new atrial fibrillation or flutter during admission and 9 (1.6%) patients were diagnosed with new heart failure or cardiomyopathy. Three (3) (0.5%) patients developed high grade atrioventricular (AV) block. Two (2) (0.3%) patients were clinically diagnosed with pericarditis or myopericarditis. Among the 295 (45.8%) patients with at least one troponin measurement, 99 (33.6%) had a peak troponin above the upper limit of normal (ULN). In-hospital mortality was higher in patients with raised troponin (32.3% vs 6.1%, p<0.001). New onset atrial fibrillation or flutter (6.4% vs 1.0%, p=0.001) and troponin elevation above the ULN (50.3% vs 16.4%, p<0.001) were more common in patients 65 years and older. There was no significant difference in the rate of cardiac complications between males and females. Conclusions: Among patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation in Australia, troponin elevation was common but clinical cardiac sequelae were uncommon. The incidence of atrial arrhythmias and troponin elevation was greatest in patients 65 years and older.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1834-1840 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Heart Lung and Circulation |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2021. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- Arrhythmia
- Cardiomyopathy
- COVID-19
- Troponin