Abstract
Objectives: COVID-19 has been the primary health problem and
because of the virus affinity to endothelial cells, it has become an
important reason of vascular problems and cardiac injury. After mild
COVID-19 infection, patients frequently attend to the cardiology clinics
with cardiac symptoms and their primary cardiac tests are mostly normal.
The aim of the study is analysing if the difference of cardiac
deterioration could be shown with 2D-speckle tracking echocardiography
between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients when transthoracic
echocardiography parameters are normal. Methods: In this
retrospective single centre study, total of 2741 transthoracic
echocardiography records were assessed and post-COVID patients (n:108)
were detected and divided into ‘symptomatic’ and asymptomatic’ patient
groups and left ventricular global longitudinal strain values were
compared. Results: The number of patients with normal global
longitudinal strain values were equal in the groups and the number of
patients with impaired GLS values in the symptomatic group were more
than the asymptomatic group (15 patients in the symptomatic group and 4
patients in the asymptomatic group) and the difference was statistically
different (p=0,008). The average GLS values were -18,88±2,50 in the
asymptomatic group and -17,40±3,68 in symptomatic group but the
difference was not statistically significant (p=0,098)
Conclusion: More symptomatic patients than the asymptomatic
ones have impaired left ventricular GLS values according to the results
of this study. Even if it is not statistically significant, the mean
left ventricular GLS values are also reduced in symptomatic patients
after mild COVID-19 infection.