As the coronavirus pandemic progresses, new findings emerge around it, and now two new studies have revealed the lasting consequences that SARS-CoV-2 could have on the body, specifically the cardiovascular system.
The first research published in JAMA Cardiology by German researchers found that the virus can reach cardiac muscle tissue in the heart.
This conclusion comes after evaluating the heart tissue of 39 people in Germany who had recently died from COVID-19 and were diagnosed with the postmortem virus .
According to the publication, the ages of the patients at death ranged from 78 to 89 years, and the virus was present in the hearts of 24 of the 39 patients.
Although the virus was found within the heart tissue of the patients evaluated, it was not necessarily associated with inflammation consistent with myocarditis.
Although it was already known that pre-existing cardiovascular conditions, such as coronary artery disease and high blood pressure, can increase the risk of complications of COVID-19 in a person, this study showed evidence of the cardiovascular impact of the coronavirus.
"These new findings provide intriguing evidence that COVID-19 is associated with at least some component of myocardial injury, perhaps as a result of direct viral infection of the heart," detailed in an article accompanying the first study, the doctors Clyde Yancy , chief of cardiology, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Gregg Fonarow , cardiologist, Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center.
For its part, the second investigation carried out by experts in Germany, Italy and Russia, evaluated 100 patients from 45 to 53 years old, who had recently recovered from the disease.
Of the 100 patients, 82% were symptomatic and 33% of the people involved required hospitalization, while 67% were able to recover at home.
And, regarding their participants' cardiovascular health, 78% had abnormal findings from cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, or tests evaluating the function and structure of the cardiovascular system, while 60% of recovered patients had "inflammation myocardial cancer ".
It is worth mentioning that these results were independent of the pre-existing conditions, severity, course of the disease and the period elapsed since the diagnosis of coronavirus.
In this way, new research establishes a link between COVID-19 and myocarditis, or inflammation in the heart caused by a viral infection, but relatively weak since, according to Daniel Cantillon , a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, he told Health that many Viruses have been linked to myocarditis, and most people who develop it continue to function fully.
Therefore, while myocarditis resulting from causes other than COVID-19 has been associated with life-threatening arrhythmias, this is "extremely rare," since most myocarditis patients "have a very Good life quality".
He also explained that the chances of a survivor of the virus suffering from myocarditis are rare, given what is known so far. "But that does not mean that we should not rule out the investigation, only that more investigation of the subject is needed," the specialist concluded.
According to the Texas Heart Institute, myocarditis is an inflammation of the myocardium, a muscular wall of the heart. In other words, when the heart becomes inflamed, it cannot pump as effectively due to swelling and damage to its cells.
But, if the immune system sends antibodies to try to fight the cause of the inflammation, it can be further damaged, because sometimes these antibodies attack the tissues of the heart instead, and if too many cells of the heart are damaged, it weakens.
As if that were not enough, the institute points out that, in some cases, this process is so fast that it leads to heart failure or even sudden death.
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