How Can the Presence of Cardiovascular Diseases Impact Morbidity and Mortality in Patients with COVID-19?

Since the pandemic’s beginning, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, called COVID-19, has shown itself to be a wide-spectrum and unpredictable condition, with patients being practically asymptomatic. In contrast, others had severe pulmonary involvement, the major cause of morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. ^–

At an early stage, COVID-19 was shown to have a broad and potentially alarming link to the cardiovascular system. Angiotensin-2-converting enzyme receptors have been shown to directly interface with viral pathogenesis and maybe the cellular gateway for type 2 pneumocytes, macrophages and cardiomyocytes. Thus, patients with cardiovascular diseases were more susceptible to severe forms of the disease. Hypertension, arrhythmias, cardiomyopathies and coronary artery disease were among the main comorbidities in critically ill patients with COVID-19. Patients with cardiovascular diseases (particularly those with hypertension) have a morbidity rate of up to 10.5% after infection with COVID-19. In the present study, we can observe a similar relationship. It was clear in this Brazilian series how the presence of atherosclerotic disease and traditional risk factors alone or together were capable of impacting mortality and prognosis. Although the study has a limited series, it includes only high-risk patients with a high rate of outcomes, allowing the evaluation of results to be consistent and following exactly the same line as the international literature.

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