Impact of acute myocardial injury on prognosis in patients with COVID-19

S. Karahan, F. Katkat, S. Ozcan, I. Sahin, E. Okuyan

Department of Cardiology, Health Sciences University, Bağcılar Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey. drserkankarahan@gmail.com

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• Infectious Diseases

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the frequency and impact of acute myocardial injury on prognosis in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective study that included consecutive hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Clinic-demographic characteristics, laboratory values, and high-sensitivity troponin I were extracted from the electronic database. Mortality and other clinical complications, including respiratory failure requiring invasive mechanical ventilation and acute kidney injury were recorded. Myocardial injury was defined as having a serum troponin I value >19.8 ng/mL. We performed Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox regression to determine survival times and independent predictors of mortality.

RESULTS: A total of 324 patients were included. Seventy-seven patients (23.8%) had acute myocardial injury. The primary outcome measure, namely death, occurred in 54.5% and 3.2% of the patients with and without myocardial injury, respectively. Notably, 75.3% of the patients with myocardial injury and 6.5% of the patients without myocardial injury developed ARDS. Overall, 50 out of 324 patients (15.4%) died during the study period. The mortality rate was 54.5% in patients with myocardial injury and 3.2% in patients without myocardial injury. Mean survival times were significantly different between the groups (15.1±0.9 days in patients with myocardial injury and 24.4±0.7 days in patients without myocardial injury, log-rank test p-value <0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: The presence of chronic kidney disease and application of invasive mechanical ventilation were found to be independent predictors of in-hospital mortality. The presence of acute myocardial injury was common but not independently associated with mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

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