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As health systems worldwide grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, patients on durable LVAD support represent a unique population at risk for the disease. We outline such a patient who developed COVID-19 complicated by "cytokine storm" with severe ARDS and myocardial injury; and describe the challenges that arose during management.

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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with a range of hematologic findings and complications [1]. We have encountered three cases of significant methemoglobinemia, and five cases of relatively mild methemoglobinemia, among patients being treated for COVID-19 in our health system during a 4 week period in April 2020. For comparison, there was only one case of mild acquired methemoglobinemia of any cause documented in our health system during the preceding year. Below we describe the three cases of significant methemoglobinemia, including their presentations, treatments, and outcomes.

Introduction: Numerous case series have reported on the baseline characteristics and inhospital mortality of patients with COVID-19, however, these studies included patients localized in a specific geographic region. The purpose of our study was to identify differences in the clinical characteristics and the in-hospital mortality of patients with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 internationally. Methods: A comprehensive search of all published literature on adult patients with laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 that reported on the clinical characteristics and inhospital mortality was performed. Groups were compared using a Chi-square test with Yates correction of continuity. A two-tailed p value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: After screening 516 studies across the globe, 43 studies from 12 countries were included in our final analysis. Patients with COVID-19 in America and Europe were older compared to their Asian counterparts. Europe had the highest percentage of male patients. American and European patients had a higher incidence of co-morbid conditions (p \ 0.05 for all variables). In-hospital mortality was significantly higher in America (22.23%) and Europe (22.9%) compared to Asia (12.65%) (p \ 0.0001), but no difference was seen when compared with each other (p = 0.49). Conclusions: There is a significant variation in the clinical characteristics in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 across the globe. In-hospital mortality is similar between America and Europe, but considerably higher than Asia.

OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to describe the authors’ initial experience with combined coronary artery positron emission tomographic (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) and 18F-sodium fluoride (18F-NaF) radiotracers, describe common problems and their solutions, and demonstrate the feasibility of coronary PET/MR imaging in appropriate patients. BACKGROUND Recently, PET imaging has been applied to the aortic valve and regions of atherosclerosis. 18F-FDG PET imaging has become established for imaging inflammation in atherosclerosis in the aorta and carotid arteries. Moreover, 18F-NaF has emerged as a novel tracer of active microcalcification in the aortic valve and coronary arteries. Coronary PET imaging remains challenging because of the small caliber of the vessels and their complex motion. Currently, most coronary imaging uses combined PET and computed tomographic imaging, but there is increasing enthusiasm for PET/MR imaging because of its reduced radiation, potential to correct for motion, and the complementary information available from cardiac MR in a single scan. METHODS Twenty-three patients with diagnosed or documented risk factors for coronary artery disease underwent either 18F-FDG or 18F-NaF PET/MR imaging. Standard breath-held MR-based attenuation correction was compared with a novel free-breathing approach. The impact on PET image artifacts and the interpretation of vascular uptake were evaluated semiquantitatively by expert readers. Moreover, PET reconstructions with more algorithm iterations were compared visually and by target-to-background ratio. RESULTS Image quality was significantly improved by novel free-breathing attenuation correction. Moreover, conspicuity of coronary uptake was improved by increasing the number of algorithm iterations from 3 to 6. Elevated radiotracer uptake could be localized to individual coronary lesions using both 18F-FDG (n = 1, maximal target-to-background ratio = 1.61) and 18F-NaF (n = 7, maximal target-to-background ratio = 1.55 ± 0.37), including in 1 culprit plaque post–myocardial infarction confirmed by myocardial late gadolinium enhancement. CONCLUSIONS The authors provide the first demonstration of successful, low-radiation (7.2 mSv) PET/MR imaging of inflammation and microcalcification activity in the coronary arteries. However, this requires specialized approaches tailored to coronary imaging for both attenuation correction and PET reconstruction.

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