Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Jul 6:39:173.
doi: 10.11604/pamj.2021.39.173.27802. eCollection 2021.

Cardiac manifestations of the coronavirus disease-19: a review of pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and treatment

Momina Khalid  1 , Sana Awan  2 , Nadia Nazir Jatoi  2 , Hafsa Nazir Jatoi  2 , Farah Yasmin  2 , Rohan Kumar Ochani  2 , Simran Batra  2 , Farheen Malik  2 , Jawad Ahmed  2 , Sanchit Chawla  3 , Ahmad Mustafa  4 , Hassan Mehmood Lak  3 , Salim Surani  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Cardiac manifestations of the coronavirus disease-19: a review of pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and treatment

Momina Khalid et al. Pan Afr Med J. .

Abstract

The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), first appearing in Wuhan, China, and later declared as a pandemic, has caused serious morbidity and mortality worldwide. Severe cases usually present with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), pneumonia, acute kidney injury (AKI), liver damage, or septic shock. However, with recent advances in severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) research, the virus´s effect on cardiac tissues has become evident. Reportedly, an increased number of COVID-19 patients manifested serious cardiac complications such as heart failure, increased troponin, and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide levels (NT-proBNP), cardiomyopathies, and myocarditis. These cardiac complications initially present as chest tightness, chest pain, and heart palpitations. Diagnostic investigations such as telemetry, electrocardiogram (ECG), cardiac biomarkers (troponin, NT-proBNP), and inflammatory markers (D-dimer, fibrinogen, PT, PTT), must be performed according to the patient´s condition. The best available options for treatment are the provision of supportive care, anti-viral therapy, hemodynamic monitoring, IL-6 blockers, statins, thrombolytic, and anti-hypertensive drugs. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) healthcare workers should be well-informed about the evolving research regarding COVID-19 and approach as a multi-disciplinary team to devise effective strategies for challenging situations to reduce cardiac complications.

Keywords: COVID-19; IL-6 blockers; SARS-CoV-2; cardiovascular disease; electrocardiogram; myocarditis; thrombolytic; troponin.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
the cardiovascular impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
Figure 2
Figure 2
clinical manifestations of COVID-19 associated myocardial injury
Figure 3
Figure 3
adverse cardiovascular effects of COVID-19 drugs
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Cascella M, Rajnik M, Cuomo A, Dulebohn SC, Di Napoli R. StatPearls. 2020. 2020. Features, evaluation and treatment coronavirus (COVID-19) Accessed: Aug 30 2020. - PubMed
    1. Zhou P, Yang XL, Wang XG, Hu B, Zhang L, Zhang W, et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature. 2020 Mar;579(7798):270–273. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Liu Y, Gayle AA, Wilder-Smith A, Rocklöv J. The reproductive number of COVID-19 is higher compared to SARS coronavirus. Journal of travel medicine. 2020 Mar 13;27(2):taaa02. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Worldometer Coronavirus Update (Live): 82,394,792 Cases and 1,798,097 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic-Worldometer. Worldometer. 2020. 2020 Accessed: Dec 30 2020.
    1. Clemency B M, Varughese R, Scheafer D K, Ludwig B, Welch J V, McCormack, et al. Symptom criteria for COVID-19 testing of heath care workers. Academic emergency medicine: official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. 2020;27(6):469–474. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms