More than half of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with elevated troponin levels have heart damage.
Emerging evidence suggests that COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, elicits a wide range of cardiovascular-related complications, including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), ventricular failure, myocardial infarction (heart attack), and others. Findings from a recent study indicate that more than half of hospitalized patients who have severe COVID-19 and elevated troponin levels have heart damage.
Troponin is a group of three proteins that regulate heart and skeletal muscle contractions. Elevated levels of cardiac-specific troponin are indicators of heart muscle damage. Many people who are hospitalized with COVID-19 have elevated troponin levels.
The study involved 148 patients (average age, 64 years) who had recovered from severe COVID-19 illness. Of these, 48 required ventilator support. The authors used a form of magnetic resonance imaging called multi-parametric cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging to assess heart muscle damage in the patients.
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The imaging revealed that more than half (54 percent) of the patients exhibited signs of heart damage, including infarction (tissue death) and/or ischemia (poor blood supply), or both; some showed signs of myocarditis-like scarring. A quarter of the patients had ischemia; of these, two-thirds had no prior history of coronary disease. The majority of patients (88 percent) exhibited limited extent myocarditis-like injury, and nearly one-third (30 percent) of these had active myocarditis.
These findings suggest that COVID-19 exerts deleterious effects on multiple organ systems, including the cardiovascular system, and underscores the need for monitoring COVID-19 patients well after recovery.