ompared with patients without cardiac injury, patients with cardiac injury presented with more severe acute illness, manifested by abnormal laboratory and radiographic findings, such as higher levels of C-reactive protein, NT-proBNP, and creatinine levels; more multiple mottling and ground-glass opacity; and a greater proportion requiring noninvasive or invasive ventilation.

Consistently, our study also found 19.7% of patients with cardiac injury and first demonstrated that cardiac injury was independently associated with an increased risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19.

After adjusting for age, preexisting cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, coronary heart disease, and chronic heart failure), cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, renal failure, cancer, ARDS, creatinine levels greater than 133 μmol/L, and NT-proBNP levels greater than 900 pg/mL, the multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazard regression model showed a significantly higher risk of death in patients with cardiac injury than in those without cardiac injury, either during time from symptom onset (hazard ratio [HR], 4.26 [95% CI, 1.92-9.49]) or time from admission to study end point (HR, 3.41 [95% CI, 1.62-7.16]) (Table 3).

The mortality rate was higher among patients with vs without cardiac injury (42 [51.2%] vs 15 [4.5%]; P < .001) as shown in Table 2 and the Kaplan-Meier survival curves in Figure 2. The mortality rate increased in association with the magnitude of the reference value of hs-TNI

Patients with cardiac injury vs those without cardiac injury had shorter durations from symptom onset to follow-up (mean, 15.6 [range, 1-37] days vs 16.9 [range, 3-37] days; P = .001) and admission to follow-up (6.3 [range, 1-16] days vs 7.8 [range, 1-23] days; P = .039).

In terms of radiologic findings, bilateral pneumonia (75 of 82 patients [91.5%] vs 236 of 334 patients [70.7%]) and multiple mottling and ground-glass opacity (53 [64.6%] vs 15 [4.5%]) were more prevalent in patients with than those without cardiac injury (both P < .001, Table 1).

The duration of hospitalization before testing was longer in patients with cardiac injury than those without cardiac injury (median [range] time, 3 [1-15] days vs 2 [1-8] days; P < .001).

Thus, because of the current limited evidence, the question of whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus can directly injure the heart requires further demonstration.

Greater proportions of patients with cardiac injury required noninvasive mechanical ventilation (38 of 82 [46.3%] vs 13 of 334 [3.9%]; P < .001) or invasive mechanical ventilation (18 of 82 [22.0%] vs 14 of 334 [4.2%]; P < .001) than those without cardiac injury.

While the spectrum of clinical manifestation is highly related to the inflammation process of the respiratory tract, this case provides evidence of cardiac involvement as a possible late phenomenon of the viral respiratory infection. This process can be subclinical with few interstitial inflammatory cells, as reported by an autopsy study,10 or can present with overt manifestations even without respiratory symptoms, as in the present case.

The data again showed a significant higher incidence of acute cardiac injury in ICU/severe patients compared to the non-ICU/severe patients [RR = 13.48, 95% CI (3.60, 50.47), Z = 3.86, P = 0.0001]

Two studies that gave clear data were statistically analyzed, and the data showed that 8.0% (95% CI 4.1–12.0%) patients might be suffered from an acute cardiac injury.

Among survivors, secondary infection, acute kidney injury, and acute cardiac injury were observed in one patient each, occurring 9 days (acute kidney injury), 14 days (secondary infection), and 21 days (acute cardiac injury) after illness onset.

Heart failure44 (23%)28 (52%)16 (12%)<0·0001Septic shock38 (20%)38 (70%)0<0·0001Coagulopathy37 (19%)27 (50%)10 (7%)<0·0001Acute cardiac injury33 (17%)32 (59%)1 (1%)<0·0001Acute kidney injury28 (15%)27 (50%)1 (1%)<0·0001

Cardiac injury3 (15%)9 (28%)12 (23%)

Common complications among the 138 patients included shock (12 [8.7%]), ARDS (27 [19.6%]), arrhythmia (23 [16.7%]), and acute cardiac injury (10 [7.2%]). Patients who received care in the ICU were more likely to have one of these complications than non-ICU patients.