Impact of acute TTE-evidenced cardiac dysfunction on in-hospital and outpatient mortality: A multicenter NYC COVID-19 registry study.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 is associated with cardiac dysfunction. This study tested the relative prognostic role of left (LV), right and bi- (BiV) ventricular dysfunction on mortality in a large multicenter cohort of patients during and after acute COVID-19 hospitalization. METHODS/RESULTS: All hospitalized COVID-19 patients who underwent clinically indicated transthoracic echocardiography within 30 days of admission at four NYC hospitals between March 2020 and January 2021 were studied. Images were re-analyzed by a central core lab blinded to clinical data. Nine hundred patients were studied (28% Hispanic, 16% African-American), and LV, RV and BiV dysfunction were observed in 50%, 38% and 17%, respectively. Within the overall cohort, 194 patients had TTEs prior to COVID-19 diagnosis, among whom LV, RV, BiV dysfunction prevalence increased following acute infection (p<0.001). Cardiac dysfunction was linked to biomarker-evidenced myocardial injury, with higher prevalence of troponin elevation in patients with LV (14%), RV (16%) and BiV (21%) dysfunction compared to those with normal BiV function (8%, all p<0.05). During in- and out-patient follow-up, 290 patients died (32%), among whom 230 died in the hospital and 60 post-discharge. Unadjusted mortality risk was greatest among patients with BiV (41%), followed by RV (39%) and LV dysfunction (37%), compared to patients without dysfunction (27%, all p<0.01). In multivariable analysis, any RV dysfunction, but not LV dysfunction, was independently associated with increased mortality risk (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: LV, RV and BiV function declines during acute COVID-19 infection with each contributing to increased in- and out-patient mortality risk. RV dysfunction independently increases mortality risk.

Finite-element based optimization of left ventricular passive stiffness in normal volunteers and patients after myocardial infarction: Utility of an inverse deformation gradient calculation of regional diastolic strain.

INTRODUCTION: Left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD) is common after myocardial infarction (MI). Whereas current clinical assessment of DD relies on indirect markers including LV filling, finite element (FE) -based computational modeling directly measures regional diastolic stiffness. We hypothesized that an inverse deformation gradient (DG) method calculation of diastolic strain (IDGDS) allows the FE model-based calculation of regional diastolic stiffness (material parameters; MP) in post-MI patients with DD. METHODS: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) with tags (CSPAMM) and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) was performed in 10 patients with post-MI DD and 10 healthy volunteers. The 3-dimensional (3D) LV DG from end-diastole (ED) to early diastolic filling (EDF; DGED→EDF) was calculated from CSPAMM. Diastolic strain was calculated from DGEDF→ED by inverting the DGED→EDF. FE models were created with MI and non-MI (remote; RM) regions determined by LGE. Guccione MPs C, and exponential fiber, bf, and transverse, bt , terms were optimized with IDGDS strain. RESULTS: 3D circumferential and longitudinal diastolic strain (Ecc;Ell) calculated using IDGDS in CSPAMM obtained in volunteers and MI patients were [Formula: see text]  = 0.27 ± 0.01, [Formula: see text]  = 0.24 ± 0.03 and [Formula: see text]  = 0.21 ± 0.02, and [Formula: see text]  = 0.15 ± 0.02, respectively. MPs in the volunteer group were CH = 0.013 [0.001, 0.235] kPa, [Formula: see text]  = 20.280 ± 4.994, and [Formula: see text]  = 7.460 ± 2.171 and CRM = 0.0105 [0.010, 0.011] kPa, [Formula: see text]  = 50.786 ± 13.511 (p = 0.0846), and [Formula: see text]  = 17.355 ± 2.743 (p = 0.0208) in the remote myocardium of post-MI patients. CONCLUSION: Diastolic strain, calculated from CSPAMM with IDGDS, enables calculation of FE model-based regional diastolic material parameters. Transverse stiffness of the remote myocardium, , may be a valuable new metric for determination of DD in patients after MI.

Prognostic Utility of Right Ventricular Remodeling Over Conventional Risk Stratification in Patients With COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a growing pandemic that confers augmented risk for right ventricular (RV) dysfunction and dilation; the prognostic utility of adverse RV remodeling in COVID-19 patients is uncertain. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to test whether adverse RV remodeling (dysfunction/dilation) predicts COVID-19 prognosis independent of clinical and biomarker risk stratification. METHODS: Consecutive COVID-19 inpatients undergoing clinical transthoracic echocardiography at 3 New York City hospitals were studied; images were analyzed by a central core laboratory blinded to clinical and biomarker data. RESULTS: In total, 510 patients (age 64 ± 14 years, 66% men) were studied; RV dilation and dysfunction were present in 35% and 15%, respectively. RV dysfunction increased stepwise in relation to RV chamber size (p = 0.007). During inpatient follow-up (median 20 days), 77% of patients had a study-related endpoint (death 32%, discharge 45%). RV dysfunction (hazard ratio [HR]: 2.57; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.49 to 4.43; p = 0.001) and dilation (HR: 1.43; 95% CI: 1.05 to 1.96; p = 0.02) each independently conferred mortality risk. Patients without adverse RV remodeling were more likely to survive to hospital discharge (HR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.90; p = 0.041). RV indices provided additional risk stratification beyond biomarker strata; risk for death was greatest among patients with adverse RV remodeling and positive biomarkers and was lesser among patients with isolated biomarker elevations (p ≤ 0.001). In multivariate analysis, adverse RV remodeling conferred a >2-fold increase in mortality risk, which remained significant (p < 0.01) when controlling for age and biomarker elevations; the predictive value of adverse RV remodeling was similar irrespective of whether analyses were performed using troponin, D-dimer, or ferritin. CONCLUSIONS: Adverse RV remodeling predicts mortality in COVID-19 independent of standard clinical and biomarker-based assessment.