Two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiographic evaluation of left ventricle in post-COVID-19 patients with or without cardiac symptoms: a retrospective clinical study

Abstract

Objective: In recent years, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has been the primary health problem and because of the virus affinity to endothelial cells, it has become an important reason of vascular problems and cardiac injury. After mild COVID-19 infection, patients frequently attend cardiology clinics with cardiac symptoms and their primary cardiac tests are mostly normal. In this study we aimed to analyze if two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography shows any difference between symptomatic and asymptomatic post-COVID- 19 patients when transthoracic echocardiography parameters are nor- mal. Material and Methods: In this retrospective single center study, 2,741 transthoracic echocardiography records were assessed and 108 post-COVID-19 patients were detected and divided into symptomatic and asymptomatic patient groups and left ventricular global longitudi- nal strain (LV-GLS) values were compared. Results: The number of patients with normal LV-GLS values were equal in the groups and there were 4 patients whose values were borderline in the asymptomatic group, while there was none in the symptomatic group. The number of patients with impaired GLS values in the symptomatic group were higher than the asymptomatic group (15 vs 4 patients) and the differ- ence was statistically different (p=0.008). The average LV-GLS values were -18.88±2.50 in the asymptomatic group and -17.40±3.68 in symp- tomatic group but the difference was not statistically significant (p=0.098). Conclusion: More symptomatic patients than the asymp- tomatic ones have impaired LV-GLS values according to the results of this study. Even if it is not statistically significant, the mean LV-GLS values are also reduced in symptomatic patients after mild COVID-19 infection.