Heart scans for more than half of COVID-19 patients showed abnormalities in functioning, new research shows.
British researchers studied echocardiography scan results for 1,216 COVID-19 patients from 69 countries. Most (901 patients) had no known heart disease before the study. They published the study in European Heart Journal-Cardiovascular Imaging.
The heart scans for 55 percent of the patients showed abnormal changes in the way their heart was pumping, and around one in seven showed evidence of severe dysfunction.
Among the 901 patients who did not have known heart disease before the study, scans for 46 percent of the patients showed abnormal heart function.
Additionally, the treatment for one-third of the patients was changed as a result of the heart scans.