Effects of Covid-19 Lockdown on Patients with Implantable
Cardioverter-Defibrillators in South of Italy: possible causes?
Abstract
Aims to evaluate the incidence of cardiac arrhythmias during a lockdown
period due to COVID-19 pandemics in a population followed by remote
monitoring through implanted cardiac defibrillators. Methods and results
In this retrospective, multicentre cohort study, we included 574
remotely monitored automatic (AICD) and cardiac resynchronization
devices (CRT-D) recipients implanted before January 1st 2019 at seven
Hospitals of Campania Region, comparing the incidence of arrhythmias
occurred during the lockdown period due to COVID-19 epidemics (from
March 9th to May 1st 2020) with the arrhythmias rate of the
corresponding period in 2019. An effective retrospective data collection
was performed through remote monitoring, as this tool allows the direct
transfer of the the information stored by the implantable devices to
medical personnel. During the lockdown period, we observed ventricular
tachyarrhythmias (ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation) in 25 (4.8%)
patients as compared to 12 (2.3%) during the corresponding 2019 period
(p < 0.04); new-onset atrial fibrillation was detected in 38
(8.2%) subjects during lockdown period and in 24 (5.2%) during the
reference period (p < 0.004). Conclusion During pandemics
lockdown period we observed an higher incidence of arrhythmic events in
ICD/CRT-D patients followed up through device remote monitoring by seven
hospitals of Campania region.