Long Covid linked to Cardiac Complications among covid survivors

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis found the diverse range of long-term cardiac complications associated with the virus. The critical findings were published in BMC Medicine.

The review included 150 studies and evaluated 57 different complications and underscores the need for nuanced investigation and robust studies in understanding the prolonged effects of the virus on the cardiovascular system. This meta-analysis focused on cardiac complications persisting for four weeks or more post-COVID-19 infection. A customized Newcastle–Ottawa scale (NOS) was utilized to assess the quality of the included studies. Also, only 25.3% of the studies were classified as high quality, emphasizing the imperative for rigorous research methodologies in this critical area.

Among the 57 cardiac complications examined, chest pain and arrhythmia emerged as the most frequently studied. The meta-analysis, covering 137 studies, revealed an overall prevalence of 9.79% for chest pain and 8.22% for arrhythmia. However, when the data was stratified based on study quality, significant variations were observed. Studies with lower quality scores, smaller sample sizes, unsystematic sampling methods, and cross-sectional designs reported higher prevalence rates for these complications.

The findings underscore the complexity of long-term cardiac complications post-COVID-19 and emphasize the necessity for high-quality epidemiologic studies. Patterns revealed in the meta-analysis suggest that meticulous research design and larger sample sizes are crucial for accurate characterization of the prevalence of these complications. 

This review highlights prevalent issues like chest pain and arrhythmia and also, emphasizes the correlation between reported findings and the quality of the studies. This review also underscores the urgency of high-quality research to inform effective interventions and treatments for those facing prolonged cardiac effects after recovering from COVID-19.

Reference:

Guo, B., Zhao, C., He, M. Z., Senter, C., Zhou, Z., Peng, J., Li, S., Fitzpatrick, A. L., Lindström, S., Stebbins, R. C., Noppert, G. A., & Li, C. (2023). Identifying patterns of reported findings on long-term cardiac complications of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. In BMC Medicine (Vol. 21, Issue 1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-03162-5