Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The main aim of this work is the evaluation of the myocardial activity in recovered SARS–COV–2 patients using echocardiography. METHODS: 64 recovered SARS–COV–2 patients (28 men and 36 women) were checked within our premises because of persistent symptoms after the peak phase of the infection. EchocoloDoppler has been exploited for each patient to determine the following indicators of left ventricular activity: Biplane Ejection fraction; Myocardial function by means of global longitudinal strain (GLS), global radial strain (GRS) global circonferential strain (GCS), Analysis of longitudinal and circumferential tracking at the level of the three endocardial, middle and epicardial layers and radial at the basal, middle and apical level; Myocardial Work (MW): Global Work Index (GWI), Global Constructive Work (GCW), Global Work Efficency (GWE) e Global Work Waste (GWW); assessment of the mitral E/A and E/E’ diastolic function. OUTCOMES: In 4 out of 64 patients (3 women and 1 man) a myocardial dysfunction of the left ventricle was highlighted. In 2 out of 64 patients an EF reduction was discovered, while a reduction of GLS GCS GWE and an increase of the GWW was detected in every patient involved in the study. We did not encountered variations of the tracking gradient concerning the layers of the layers with lower valuesat the level of the epicardial layer and higher values at the level of the endocardial one. Every patient involved in the study was affected by a diastolic dysfunction of 1° grade with E/A < 1 and E/E’ < 12 and they did not present significant stenosis after CT scan or angiography. Two of the 4 patients mentioned above had fibrosis areas as detected through RMN. CONCLUSIONS: We confirm that for patients with persistent symptoms after SARS–COV–2 recovery echocardiography assessment is recommended to exclude potential damages. Assessing the functioning status by strain analysis is important to confirm damages, mainly for patients where the EF activity is not significantly varied. The identification of early or soft myocardial damages is key to start treatments and schedule follow–up analysis. [Image: see text] [Image: see text] [Image: see text]