Background
Prolonged QTc interval and life-threatening arrhythmias (LTA) are potential drug induced complications previously reported with antimalarial, antivirals and antibiotics.
Objectives
To evaluate prevalence and predictors of QTc interval prolongation and incidence of LTA during hospitalization for COVID-19 among patients with normal admission QTc.
Methods
110 consecutive patients were enrolled in a multicenter international registry. 12-lead ECG was performed at admission, after 7 and 14 days; QTc values were analyzed.
Results
Fifteen (14%) patients developed a prolonged-QTc (pQT) after 7 days (mean QTc increase 66±20msec, +16%, p<0.001); these patients were older, had higher basal heart rates, higher rates of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, lower platelet count. QTc increase was inversely proportional to baseline QTc levels and leukocyte count and directly to basal heart rates(p<0.01).At multivariate stepwise analysis including age, male gender, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, basal QTc values, basal heart rate and dual antiviral therapy, age(OR 1.06, 95% C.I. 1.00-1.13, p<0.05), basal heart rate(OR 1.07, 95% C.I. 1.02-1.13, p<0.01) and dual antiviral therapy(OR 12.46, 95% C.I. 2.09-74.20, p<0.1) were independent predictors of QT-prolongation.Incidence of LTA during hospitalization was 3.6%. One patient experienced cardiac arrest and three non-sustained ventricular tachycardia. LTAs were recorded after a median of 9 days from hospitalization and were associated with 50% of mortality rate.
Conclusions
After 7 days of hospitalization, 14% of patients with Covid-19 developed pQTc; age, basal heart rate and dual antiviral therapy were found as independent predictor of pQTc. Life threatening arrhythmias have an incidence of 3.6% and were associated with poor outcome.
The detection of embolic sources in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is important to guide anticoagulant therapy. Two-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is the gold standard to study left atrial appendage (LAA) anatomy and morphology, despite some false-positive diagnosis. We hypothesized that real time 3D TEE (RT3DTEE) is superior to 2DTEE in detecting and/or excluding LAA thrombi. We studied 93 patients with non-valvular AF (60 males, age = 67.1 ± 14.2 years) referred for electric cardioversion with transthoracic, 2DTEE and RT3DTEE. Before cardioversion, TTE allowed a confident measurement of emptying velocity of LAA (LAAeV) only in 59/93 patients (63%). On the contrary a good quality TEE LAAeV was obtained in all patients with 49/93 (53%) dysfunctional LAA (LAAeV < 40 cm/s). A subgroup of 5 patients (7.2% of the 69 effective cardioversion) presented a persistent dysfunction after cardioversion (with LAAeV values of <40 cm/s on the TEE post-CV). TEE allowed to observe a bilobed shape in 45 patients (48.4%) and three lobes in 22 patients (23.7%). In addition, besides to several additional findings, 2DTEE managed to detect thrombi with certainty in 8/93 patients (8.6%). In other 5 cases with diagnostic doubts for thrombi with 2DTEE (5/93 patients: 5.4%), the addition of the RT3DTEE mode allowed to discriminate with certainty the presence of just pectinate muscles in 4 patients RT3DTEE in patients with AF at risk of embolism is feasible, accurate and showed an additional diagnostic capability in the differential diagnosis of selected cases with suspected LAA thrombi.
COVID-19 has threatened the capability of receiving and allocating patients in emergency departments (EDs) all over the world. This is a retrospective cohort study to explore the role of a simple procedure like an ECG to screen for the severity of COVID-19 on admission to the ED. For this study, 548 consecutive patients were enrolled in a multicenter international registry and stratified upon ECG on admission with a simple distinction between normal vs. abnormal rhythm. Among patients in the abnormal ECG group were those with heart rates higher than 100 beats per minute and/or atrial fibrillation. Survival in patients with normal ECG rhythm was deemed below 75% after 58 days and then stabilized, while survival in patients with abnormal ECG rhythm was deemed below 75% after 11 days and below 50% after 21 days. A multivariate analysis including abnormal rhythm, gender, age, diabetes, obesity, respiratory failure during hospitalization, heart failure during hospitalization, and abnormal rhythm was an independent predictor of death (HR 7.20 95% CI 3.63–14.28, p < 0.01). This finding, if confirmed in large prospective studies, is promising for identifying a cheap and simple procedure for patients in need of a closer look.
While warfarin therapy is efficacious in treating left atrial (LA) thrombus formation in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (AF), it does not affect red cell aggregation in vitro or LA spontaneous echo-contrast in patients. In this patient with left ventricular (LV) dysfunction secondary to AF, we observed the disappearance of dense echo-contrast in the atrial appendage after therapy with dabigatran and not with well-controlled warfarin. This allowed us to analyze accurately the appendage with three-dimensional (3D) transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) excluding thrombi and to perform electrical cardioversion to obtain a significant improvement of LV function. This case demonstrates the capability of dabigatran and not of warfarin in reducing the intense spontaneous echocontrast in atrial appendage and the ability of 3D TEE in analyzing accurately the appendage, excluding thrombi to safely perform cardioversion.
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