A new study may help identify which COVID-19 patients with signs of heart injury are at higher risk for death.
Doctors looked at 305 hospitalized patients with elevated levels of troponin, a protein released when the heart has been injured.
They reported on Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that among these patients, the increased risk for death was statistically significant only when changes in the heart’s size, shape, structure, and function were seen during an echocardiogram.
Death rates were 5.2% in patients without troponin in their blood, 18.6% when troponin was high but hearts looked normal, and 31.7% in those with high troponin plus so-called heart remodeling. When other risk factors were considered, high troponin was only tied to death in patients who also had cardiac remodeling. COVID-19 patients with high troponin should undergo echocardiography “to guide further diagnostic testing and treatment strategies,” coauthor Dr. Gennaro Giustino of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City told Reuters.
“Patients with a bad echo need much closer follow-up and more aggressive treatments,” said Dr. Carl Lavie of Ochsner Health in New Orleans, who coauthored an editorial on the study.
