Humanity is going through the fourth year of the coronavirus pandemic. For more than a year, the variant of the virus omicron and their lineages have managed to spread throughout the world.
Its impact was thought to be minor, but infection with Omicron can also cause patients to be hospitalized and lead to heart problems, among other problems.
Researchers from Israel carried out a study to find out what cardiac abnormalities were caused by infection with the Omicron variant.
They discovered differences between the impact of that variant of concern and that of the original strain of the coronavirus that circulated at the start of the pandemic. Omicron was first identified in November 2021 and has a large number of changes to its Spike protein relative to that of the wild-type virus.
The researchers, who published the work in the journal Journal of the American Heart Association, emphasized that a technology, such as echocardiography, could help make better decisions in patient care. Echocardiography is a test that uses sound waves to create images of the heart.
Information on the cardiac manifestations of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was limited prior to the study. Thus, Yan Topilsky, of Tel Aviv Elihab Ghantous Medical Center, Department of Cardiology, Tel Aviv University, and colleagues conducted a systematic prospective evaluation with echocardiography of 162 hospitalized patients with the Omicron variant and compared them with recruited patients. similarly that they had had COVID in 2020.
Compared with the parent virus strain, Omicron patients had smaller right ventricular size, better right ventricular function, higher stroke volume index, and lower mean pulmonary pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance index. However, the prevalence of left ventricular systolic or diastolic dysfunction was similar to that of patients who had had COVID in 2020.
The investigators noted that “numerous echocardiographic parameters were associated with increased in-hospital mortality” or “need for mechanical ventilation or mortality .
“Echocardiography proved to be an important prognostic tool for predicting mortality and the need for mechanical ventilation, thus helping to classify patients admitted with Omicron,” they stated in the study.
In dialogue with Infobae, Dr. Eduardo Perna, former president of the Argentine Federation of Cardiology, considered after reading the study carried out in Israel: “The work is very interesting because it compares, through the use of echocardiography, patients with the Ömicron variant and the original strain of the coronavirus. But it also compares the changes associated with COVID in a group that had a previous echocardiogram.”
In the results of the study —said Dr. Perna— it was observed that the involvement of the right ventricle is less extensive with Omicron, possibly due to a more attenuated vascular disease and lung parenchyma.
“According to the study, the condition of the left ventricle is similar in both groups of patients and generally reflects condition prior to developing COVID. But it should be noted that even so, almost half of the patients hospitalized with Omicron have abnormalities of different magnitude in the echocardiogram or echocardiography, more frequently on the right side, and some of these abnormalities in the heart can be associated with a worse evolution”, he stated.
For the specialist, the results of the study in Israel indicate that “performing an echocardiography in hospitalized patients can help identify cases with a higher risk of mortality and need for mechanical ventilation.”
SOURCE: INFOBAE
