Long-term prognostic impact of subclinical myocardial dysfunction in patients recovered from COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular sequelae may occur in patients recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Recent studies have detected a considerable incidence of subclinical myocardial dysfunction-assessed with speckle-tracking echocardiography-and of long-COVID symptoms in these patients. This study aimed to define the long-term prognostic role of subclinical myocardial dysfunction and long-COVID condition in patients recovered from COVID-19 pneumonia. METHODS: We prospectively followed up 110 patients hospitalized at our institution due to COVID-19 pneumonia in April 2020 and then recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. A 7-month clinical and echocardiographic evaluation was performed, followed by a 21-month clinical follow-up. The primary outcome was major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), a composite of myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure hospitalization, and all-cause mortality. RESULTS: A subclinical myocardial dysfunction-defined as an impairment of left ventricular global longitudinal strain (≥-18%)-was identified at a 7-month follow-up in 37 patients (34%), was associated with an increased risk of long-term MACE with a good discriminative power (area under the curve: .73) and resulted in a strong independent predictor of extended MACE in multivariate regression analyses. Long-COVID condition was not associated with a worse long-term prognosis, instead. CONCLUSIONS: In patients recovered from COVID-19 pneumonia, a subclinical myocardial dysfunction is present in one-third of the whole population at 7-month follow-up and is associated with a higher risk of MACE at long-term follow-up. Speckle-tracking echocardiography is a promising tool to optimize the risk-stratification in patients recovered from COVID-19 pneumonia, while the definition of a long-COVID condition has no prognostic relevance.

Impact of pregnancy on the natural history of women with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

AIMS: Whether pregnancy is a modifier of the long-term course and outcome of women with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is unknown. We assessed the association of pregnancy with long-term outcomes in HCM women. METHODS AND RESULTS: Retrospective evaluation of women with HCM from 1970 to 2021. Only women with pregnancy-related information (pregnancy present or absent) and a follow-up period lasting ≥1 year were included. The peri-partum period was defined as -1 to 6 months after delivery. The primary endpoint was a composite for major adverse cardiovascular events [MACE: cardiovascular death, sudden cardiac death, appropriate defibrillator shock and heart failure (HF) progression]. Overall, 379 (58%) women were included. There were 432 pregnancies in 242 (63%) patients. In 29 (7.6%) cases, pregnancies (n = 39) occurred after HCM diagnosis. Among these, three carrying likely pathogenic sarcomeric variants suffered MACEs in the peri-partum period. At 10 ± 9 years of follow-up, age at diagnosis [hazard ratio (HR) 1.034, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.018-1.050, P < 0.001] and New York Heart Association (NYHA) class (II vs. I: HR 1.944, 95% CI 0.896-4.218; III vs. I: HR 5.291, 95% CI 2.392-11.705, P < 0.001) were associated with MACE. Conversely, pregnancy was associated with reduced risk (HR 0.605; 95% CI 0.380-0.963, P = 0.034). Among women with pregnancy, multiple occurrences did not modify risk. CONCLUSIONS: Pregnancy is not a modifier of long-term outcome in women with HCM and mostly occurs before a cardiac diagnosis. Most patients tolerate pregnancy well and do not show a survival disadvantage compared to women without. Pregnancy should not be discouraged, except in the presence of severe HF symptoms or high-risk features.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common genetic disorder of the myocardium and is characterized by important gender-related differences: women are typically 5 years older than men at diagnosis, over half are diagnosed >50 years of age and consistently show greater propensity than men for heart failure (HF)-related complications and adverse outcome. Whether pregnancy is a modifier of the long-term course and outcome of women with HCM is unknown. In this study, pregnancy was not a modifier of long-term outcome in women with HCM. In particular: At 10 ± 7 years, most patients tolerated pregnancy well and did not show a survival disadvantage compared to women without pregnancies. Only baseline heart failure symptoms and age were associated with adverse outcome.Pregnancy should not be discouraged, except in the presence of severe HF symptoms or high-risk features. Nevertheless, cardio-obstetric counselling and close supervision are key in all instances, particularly in the peri-partum period.