Meta-analysis and systematic literature review of COVID-19 associated bradycardia as a predictor of mortality

BACKGROUND: Cardiac arrhythmias have been identified as independent predictors of mortality in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. While some studies have reported poor prognosis with bradycardia in COVID-19 patients, others have not found any association between bradycardia and mortality in COVID-19 patients. This study aims to assess the relationship between bradycardia and mortality in COVID-19 patients by reviewing existing literature. MAIN BODY: Articles were obtained by systematically searching the PubMed and Google scholar databases. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the studies on bradycardia and mortality in COVID-19 were done. A pooled estimate, with a sample size of 1320 patients, comparing the effect of patients that were bradycardic during their admission with those that were not on mortality showed that bradycardia did not lead to increased mortality in COVID-19 patients (OR 1.25, 95% CI 0.41–3.84, p = 0.7). CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis showed that bradycardia was not significantly associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients. However, this study is limited by the few studies on bradycardia and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Therefore, future studies should investigate this relationship so that clinicians can prognostically triage and treat COVID-19 patients appropriately.