Diagnosis and treatment strategy of coronavirus disease 2019 with cardiovascular disease in elderly patients

Abstract

Up to 24:00 January 22, 2020 there were 425 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as reported by the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China. 1 Furthermore, 162 (or 38.1%) of these patients were older than 65 years and 40% of this older age group were complicated with cardiovascular disease.The mechanisms of heart injury caused by viral pneumonia are as follows 2 : the virus directly damages the myocardium, resulting in viral myocarditis; at the same time, viral infection leads to an inflammatory storm that causes cardiovascular events, such as acute coronary syndromes and arrhythmias. According to the research, 3 these cardiovascular complications could persist for a long time, even for more than 10 years.