Successful Heart Transplantation to a Fulminant Myocarditis Patient during COVID-19 Outbreak – Lessons Learned

Abstract

A 42-year-old female without previous medical history visited for febrile sensation, myalgia, and shortness of breath for two days. Her entrance to the emergency room (ER) was delayed due to the triage process during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Mild cardiomegaly with left atrial enlargement on chest X-ray and ST-elevation on electrocardiography were noted (Figure 1). Sudden cardiac arrest developed at ER and immediate extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was applied. No coronary obstruction was present. The test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was negative and the repeated tests consistently showed negative results. On postadmission day 5, there was only p wave without corresponding ventricular conduction on electrocardiography (Figure 2) which was correlated with echocardiographic finding (Supplementary Video 1). We put the patient for heart transplantation (HT) waitlist due to the aggravating course of fulminant myocarditis. Three days later, a 27-year-old male donor was matched with negative crossmatch result. The donor test of SARS-CoV-2 revealed negative. The hospital organ procurement organization in other region hesitated to allow the

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“…I would like to share ideas on “Successful Heart Transplantation to a Fulminant Myocarditis Patient during COVID-19 Outbreak – Lessons Learned”, which published on 2020 July issue of Korean Circ J . 1) Kim et al 1) concluded that “ During the outbreak of COVID-19, a balanced strategy to ensure the safety of HT recipient and medical staff is crucial in the consideration of each individual circumstance .”…”