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Observational Study
. 2020 Dec;50(12):e13387.
doi: 10.1111/eci.13387. Epub 2020 Sep 17.

Clinical characteristics and prognosis of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with incident sustained tachyarrhythmias: A multicenter observational study

Vincenzo Russo  1 , Marco Di Maio  2 , Filiberto Fausto Mottola  1 , Gianpiero Pagnano  3 , Emilio Attena  4 , Nicoletta Verde  1 , Pierpaolo Di Micco  5 , Angelo Silverio  6 , Fernando Scudiero  7 , Luigi Nunziata  8 , Nunzia Fele  3 , Antonello D'Andrea  9 , Guido Parodi  10 , Stefano Albani  11 , Paolo Scacciatella  11 , Gerardo Nigro  1 , Sergio Severino  3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Clinical characteristics and prognosis of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with incident sustained tachyarrhythmias: A multicenter observational study

Vincenzo Russo et al. Eur J Clin Invest. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Introduction: Little is still known about the prognostic impact of incident arrhythmias in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence and predictors of sustained tachyarrhythmias in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, and their potential association with disease severity and in-hospital mortality.

Materials and methods: This was a retrospective multicenter observation study including consecutive patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 admitted to emergency department of ten Italian Hospitals from 15 February to 15 March 2020. The prevalence and the type of incident sustained arrhythmias have been collected. The correlation between the most prevalent arrhythmias and both baseline characteristics and the development of ARDS and in-hospital mortality has been evaluated.

Results: 414 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 (66.9 ± 15.0 years, 61.1% male) were included in the present study. During a median follow-up of 28 days (IQR: 12-45), the most frequent incident sustained arrhythmia was AF (N: 71; 17.1%), of which 50 (12.1%) were new-onset and 21 (5.1%) were recurrent, followed by VT (N: 14, 3.4%) and supraventricular arrhythmias (N: 5, 1.2%). Incident AF, both new-onset and recurrent, did not affect the risk of severe adverse events including ARDS and death during hospitalization; in contrast, incident VT significantly increased the risk of in-hospital mortality (RR: 2.55; P: .003).

Conclusions: AF is the more frequent incident tachyarrhythmia; however, it not seems associated to ARDS development and death. On the other hand, incident VT is a not frequent but independent predictor of in-hospital mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: Atrial Fibrillation; Covid-19; Covid-19 and arrhythmia; Covid-19 and cardiovascular System; Covid-19 and cardiovascular complications; SARS-CoV-2; SARSCoV-2 and ventricular arrhythmias.

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Conflict of interest statement

No Conflict of Interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Proportion of incident tachyarrhythmias among survived or not COVID‐19 patients
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Forest plot visual summary of the results of logistic regression models. AF, atrial fibrillation; CAD, coronary artery disease; CKD, chronic kidney disease; VT, ventricular tachycardia
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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