Cardiovascular Disease Role in COVID-19 Pandemic
APRIL 15, 2020 — A new registry has been created to standardize data collection on patients with COVID-19 across Europe to better understand the role of cardiovascular disease in this pandemic.
CAPACITY-COVID was launched March 23 and builds on the case report form released by the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium and World Health Organization.
The extended form includes additional data collection regarding cardiac history and cardiovascular risk factors, prior use of cardiac medications or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, cardiac biomarkers, electrocardiography, echocardiography, cardiac MRI, invasive cardiac procedures, and cardiac complications. Data also are being collected on cardiac outcomes during admission at 7 and 30 days.
“By collecting information in the registry in a standardized manner, we hope this initiative can aid in providing more insight into (1) the incidence and pattern of cardiovascular complications in patients with COVID-19 and (2) the vulnerability and clinical course of COVID-19 in patients with an underlying cardiovascular disease,” Marijke Linschoten, MD, and Folkert Asselbergs, MD, PhD, both with University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, reported April 8 in the European Heart Journal.
Insufficient evidence is currently available to guide clinicians in the management of patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the authors note. Cardiac risk factors and preexisting CVD appear to increase the risk of poor outcomes, yet cardiovascular complications have also been reported, even in the absence of underlying CVD.
Experimental treatments such as antimalarial and antiviral drugs also have known cardiovascular side effects, and there are concerns, “especially on social media,” regarding the safety of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) in relation to COVID-19, Linschoten and Asselbergs point out.
In the short term, the primary focus of the consortium will be to develop prognostic models based on the data collected. Thus far, 43 of 71 Dutch hospitals have signed on to the consortium, with 18 centers already collecting data, the authors note.
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Sources: Eur Heart J. Published online. Full text
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