Right ventricular free wall longitudinal strain assessment using offline speckle tracking in COVID-19 patients requiring intensive medical care

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate and confirm the prognostic utility of comprehensive transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) using offline myocardial strain analyses in a Japanese coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cohort hospitalized in intensive care units. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of 90 consecutive adult patients with COVID-19 who underwent clinically indicated standard two-dimensional TTE in intensive care wards. Patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) at the time of TTE were excluded. Biventricular strain assessments using vendor-independent offline speckle tracking analysis were performed. Patients with inadequate TTE image quality were also excluded. RESULTS: Among the 90 COVID-19 patients, 15 (17%) patients required venovenous or venoarterial ECMO. There were 25 (28%) in-hospital deaths. A composite event, defined as the combination of in-hospital mortality and subsequent initiation of ECMO, occurred in 32 patients. Multivariate logistic regression for composite events indicated that right ventricular free wall longitudinal strain (RV-FWLS) and mechanical ventilation at the time of TTE were independent risk factors for composite events (p = 0.01, odds ratio [OR] 1.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01–1.18; p = 0.04, OR 3.24, 95% CI 1.03–10.20). Cumulative survival probability plots generated using the Kaplan–Meier method for composite events with log-rank tests revealed a significant difference between subgroups divided by the cutoff value of RV-FWLS (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Offline measurement of RV-FWLS may be a potent predictor of worse outcomes in COVID-19 requiring intensive care. Larger multicenter prospective studies are needed.