Echocardiographic findings of filipino patients with COVID-19 pneumonia: a single-center experience

Abstract

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. BACKGROUND Acute respiratory injury is the main culprit for majority of the morbidity and mortality among COVID-19. However, there is a high prevalence of cardiovascular complication among these patients. Assessment of echocardiographic parameters provides clinical characteristics for utilization in the management of patients with COVID-19. OBJECTIVE To determine the predictors of mortality and analyze the echocardiographic findings of Filipino patients with COVID-19 Pneumonia and its correlation to the severity of the disease. METHOD This is a retrospective observational cohort study of the echocardiographic findings among 173 Filipino patients who acquired COVID-19 pneumonia from June to August 2020. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors of dichotomous outcome variable. RESULTS The results showed that there was a significant direct correlation between the severity of COVID-19 and wall motion abnormality (r = 0.171; p = 0.024). There was also a significant direct correlation between length of hospital stay and the wall motion abnormality (r = 0.140; p = 0.050). Furthermore, there was a significant difference noted in the proportion of subjects with or without wall motion abnormality according to mortality (p = 0.007). The results also exhibit significant difference in the left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD), left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and left atrium according to mortality as shown by the p values 0.001, 0.001 and 0.030 respectively. However, there is no significant correlation noted between the severity of COVID-19 and mortality to the right ventricular size and function. Multivariate analysis using logistic regression, two variables were found to be significant predictors of mortality, this includes LVEDD and LVEF. CONCLUSION Among Filipino patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, the study demonstrated that left ventricular end diastolic diameter and left ventricular ejection fraction are significant predictors for mortality.