Doctors seeing cardiac issues among Covid-19 survivors

A study recently published in Nature shows that over 300 people out of 1,000 infected with acute Covid-19 face a one-year risk and burden of developing cardiovascular disease.

Veteran cardiologists in the city who studied the findings concurred that they match what has been observed in the city since 2021 and that they are continuing to see follow-up cases of patients from the second wave.

More pertinently, they added that the third wave is continuing to produce new cardiac cases, but that the numbers are significantly lower than last year.

Among them is a 55-year-old expert cardiologist who became a cardiac patient after contracting Covid-19 weeks ago.

Dr K P Srihari Das of Manipal Hospital (Jayanagar) said that he tested positive for Covid-19 on January 14, after developing mild symptoms of the disease. However, while he recovered from the disease soon enough, he found that he was suffering from heart arrhythmia.

“My heart rate was extremely high. I was diagnosed with Tachycardia as were other recovered Covid-positive members of my immediate family. However, our SpO2 levels remain at safe levels showing that the lung was not affected,” Dr Das said.

He added arrhythmia has also been detected among other patients turning up at the hospital.

Such cases are creating something of a medical mystery because post-Covid cardiac issues are normally associated with hypoxemia which is prompted by moderate or serious Covid-19 illness, according to cardiologist Dr Abhijit Vilas Kulkarni of Apollo Hospital.

Hypoxemia is caused by inflammation or scarring of the lung tissue by a viral infection.

It results in low oxygen saturation levels in the blood. The cardiovascular system attempts to compensate by delivering more blood to tissues, which is noticed by oxygen-sensing mechanisms such as carotid bodies.

“But in the third wave, there has been a little decline of oxygen saturation levels and therefore little hypoxemia. Consequently, there have also not been many ICU hospitalizations,” Dr Kulkarni pointed out.

This is confirmed by official data which shows that the peak ICU occupancy in the state was on February 1, with 759 patients.

Notwithstanding this, doctors said that they are noting cardiac problems across the spectrum of Covid survivors, although primarily among senior citizens. Some cardiac cases were found to have Covid-19 after the fact.

This is causing debate about whether Covid-19 was the causative agent for these cardiac cases or if it flared up an existing cardiac problem.

Experts noted that Covid infection, however minor, could nevertheless be exerting a debilitating effect on the human heart.

“A viral infection will have a cardiac effect, notwithstanding which variant of the novel coronavirus is responsible,” explained interventionist cardiologist Dr Rajpal Singh of Fortis hospital.

The authors of the Nature paper, titled ‘long-term cardiovascular outcomes of Covid-19,’ stated that beyond the first “30 days after infection, individuals with Covid-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure and thromboembolic disease.”

The more severe a patient’s bout with Covid-19 is, the more aggravated the cardiac involvement could be.

The risks and burdens were said to be evident even among individuals who were not hospitalized during the acute phase of the infection.

“Our results provide evidence that the risk and one-year burden of cardiovascular disease in survivors of acute Covid-19 are substantial,” they added.

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