COVID-19-related cardiac lesion: The questions of pathogenesis and diagnostics

Abstract

Coronavirus infection is a topic that has not lost its relevance in the medical community to date. Among the heterogeneous clinical manifestations of this disease lesions of cardiac structures often occur. They are mainly of inflammatory nature and can be both acute and delayed. It is well known that the prognosis for patients with cardiac lesions significantly worsens; timely diagnosis and treatment initiation play an important role in preventing severe complications.
 This review presents the current literature data on the pathogenesis of cardiac lesions in COVID-19 patients, discusses the issues of rational diagnosis of this pathology using modern techniques: laboratory, functional, imaging (cardiac magnetic resonance plays the main role among them) and invasive ones. Currently, it is recognized that the diagnosis of myocarditis associated with coronavirus infection has a number of fundamental differences from the diagnosis of myocarditis of other nature. In addition, the main aspects of inflammatory heart lesions associated with COVID-19 vaccination are discussed, since this complication occurs more frequently than it is commonly believed. It is often a reason to refuse vaccination; however, this decision may cause severe consequences both for the individual and for the population as a whole.