Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has quickly progressed to a global health emergency. Respiratory illness is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients with the disease spectrum ranging from asymptomatic subclinical infection, to severe pneumonia progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome. There is growing evidence describing pathophysiological resemblance of SARS-CoV-2 infection with other coronavirus infections such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2 receptors play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of the virus. Disruption of this receptor leads to cardiomyopathy, cardiac dysfunction, and heart failure. Patients with cardiovascular disease are more likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and they are more likely to develop severe symptoms. Hypertension, arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy and coronary heart disease are amongst major cardiovascular disease comorbidities seen in severe cases of COVID-19. There is growing literature exploring cardiac involvement in SARS-CoV-2. Myocardial injury is one of the important pathogenic features of COVID-19. As a surrogate for myocardial injury, multiple studies have shown increased cardiac biomarkers mainly cardiac troponins I and T in the infected patients especially those with severe disease. Myocarditis is depicted as another cause of morbidity amongst COVID-19 patients. The exact mechanisms of how SARS-CoV-2 can cause myocardial injury are not clearly understood. The proposed mechanisms of myocardial injury are direct damage to the cardiomyocytes, systemic inflammation, myocardial interstitial fibrosis, interferon mediated immune response, exaggerated cytokine response by Type 1 and 2 helper T cells, in addition to coronary plaque destabilization, and hypoxia.

The current outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) also known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has quickly progressed to a global pandemic. There are well-documented cardiac complications of COVID-19 in patients with and without prior cardiovascular disease. The cardiac complications include myocarditis, heart failure, and acute coronary syndrome resulting from coronary artery thrombosis or SARS-CoV-2-related plaque ruptures. There is growing evidence showing that arrhythmias are also one of the major complications. Myocardial inflammation caused by viral infection leads to electrophysiological and structural remodeling as a possible mechanism for arrhythmia. This could also be the mechanism through which SARS-CoV-2 leads to different arrhythmias. In this review article, we discuss arrhythmia manifestations in COVID-19.

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), with rising numbers of patients worldwide, presents an urgent need for effective treatments. To date, there are no therapies or vaccines that are proven to be effective against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Several potential candidates or repurposed drugs are under investigation, including drugs that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication and block infection. The most promising therapy to date is remdesivir, which is US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for emergency use in adults and children hospitalized with severe suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19. Herein we summarize the general features of SARS-CoV-2’s molecular and immune pathogenesis and discuss available pharmacological strategies, based on our present understanding of SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections. Finally, we outline clinical trials currently in progress to investigate the efficacy of potential therapies for COVID-19.

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Objective: Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a significant cause of mortality in epilepsy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the validity of the SUDEP-7 inventory and its components as tools for predicting SUDEP risk, and to develop and validate an improved inventory. Methods: The study included 28 patients who underwent video-electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring and later died of SUDEP, and 56 age-and sex-matched control patients with epilepsy. The SUDEP-7 score, its individual components, and an alternative inventory were examined as predictors of SUDEP. Results: SUDEP-7 scores were significantly higher among SUDEP patients compared with controls, both at time of admission (p = 0.024) and most recent follow-up (p = 0.016). SUDEP-7 scores declined only among controls, who demonstrated reduced seizure frequency. Seizure freedom after epilepsy surgery was also associated with survival. Several components of the SUDEP-7 inventory were independently associated with higher risk of SUDEP, including more than three generalized tonicclonic (GTC) seizures (p = 0.002), one or more GTC seizures (p = 0.001), or one or more seizures of any type within the last year (p = 0.013), and intellectual disability (p = 0.031). In stepwise regression models, SUDEP-7 scores did not enhance the prediction of SUDEP over either GTC seizure frequency or seizure frequency alone. A novel SUDEP-3 inventory comprising GTC seizure frequency, seizure frequency, and intellectual disability (p < 0.001) outperformed the SUDEP-7 inventory (p = 0.010) in predicting SUDEP. Significance: Our findings demonstrate the limitations of the SUDEP-7 inventory.We propose a new three-item SUDEP-3 inventory, which predicts SUDEP better than the SUDEP-7.