Cardiac involvement in patients recovered from COVID-19 identified using left ventricular longitudinal strain

INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) has been associated with subclinical myocardial dysfunction during its acute phase and a recurring pattern of reduced basal left ventricular longitudinal strain on speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) in hospitalized patients. But a question still remains unanswered: speckle-tracking echocardiography might also be suitable to detect residual myocardial involvement after acute stage of COVID-19? METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied 100 patients recovered from COVID-19 with STE to evaluate global (GLS) and segmentar longitudinal strain (LS) and compared with a control group of 100 healthy individuals. STE was performed at a median of 130.35 ± 76.06 days after COVID-19 diagnostic. Demographic and echocardiographic parameters are similar in both groups. Left ventricular ejection faction (LVEF) and GLS were normal in COVID-19 patients (66.20 ± 1.98% and − 19.51 ± 2.87%, respectively). A reduction in mean LS for the basal segments was found in COVID-19 (16.48 ± 5.41%) when compared to control group (19.09 ± 4.31%) (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that COVID-19-induced cardiac involvement could persist after recovery of the disease and may be detected by deformation abnormalities using STE. COVID-19-induced myocardial involvement often shows specific LV deformation patterns due to pronounced edema and/or myocardial damage in basal LV segments.