Fresh scientific evidence has come up to suggest that underlying cardiovascular diseases are associated with an increased risk of in-hospital death among patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
Analysing nearly 9,000 COVID-19 cases from the USA, Europe and Asia, an Indian-origin doctor from Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Boston and his team members on Sunday reported that two common factors among those died from the pandemic virus are more than 65 years of age and several forms of cardiovascular diseases.
“Our study confirmed previous observations suggesting that underlying cardiovascular disease is associated with an increased risk of in-hospital death among patients hospitalized with COVID-19,” Mandeep R Mehra and his team members reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Globally there are several studies and reports demonstrating how elderly patients with underlying symptoms like heart complications, breathing troubles and diabetes are adversely affected by the novel coronavirus 2019. Obesity and smoking too are suspected to be additional risk factors for COVID-19 deaths.
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There has been growing recognition that persons with underlying increased cardiovascular risk may be disproportionately affected. At the same time, the biology of the virus led to concerns regarding a potential harmful association of medicines like ACE inhibitors or ARB (angiotensin-receptor blockers).
However, several scientific societies, including the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the Heart Failure Society of America, and the Council on Hypertension of the European Society of Cardiology, have urged that these important medications should not be discontinued in the absence of clear clinical evidence of harm.
Mehra and his colleagues at several other medical colleges and universities set out to investigate such concerns.
From an international registry, they collected data from 169 hospitals located in 11 countries in Asia, Europe, and North America and analysed the same.
Of the 8,910 COVID-19 patients they analysed, as many 515 died in the hospital (5.8%) and 8395 survived to discharge. The mortality was between 10-15% for (1) age greater than 65 (10%) (2) coronary artery disease (10.2%) (3) heart failure (15.3%) (4) cardiac arrhythmia (11.5%) (5) chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (14.2%) and (6) smoking (9.4%).
While the study confirmed the risks associated with underlying cardiovascular diseases, it didn’t confirm previous concerns regarding a potential harmful association of ACE inhibitors or ARBs with in-hospital death in this clinical context, they reported.