Cardiac Status Among Heart Failure Patients with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators Before, During, and After COVID-19 Lockdown

J Card Fail. 2022 Jun 8:S1071-9164(22)00540-1. doi: 10.1016/j.cardfail.2022.05.012. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

<p class="Default" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">During the COVID-19 pandemic, inpatient services for acute cardiac conditions including heart failure markedly declined, while telemedicine services increased. Little information is available on the extent to which cardiac status changed among patients with heart failure in this period. Using remote monitoring data of 4,555 patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">CRT-D</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">) living in New York City and Minneapolis/Saint Paul, we assessed changes in markers of cardiac status among these patients in 2019 and 2020. </span><span style="fontsize: 11pt;">We found little to no change in most markers </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">of cardiac status </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">among heart failure patients with implanted ICDs or CRT-D devices during the COVID-19 shutdown period, and this is consistent for all age and sex subgroups. After the restrictions were lifted, these physiologic markers returned to the 2019 levels. This study provides unprecedented information that the cardiac health of heart failure patients with ICDs or CRT-D devices did not substantively change during the period of the pandemic with marked restrictions and disruptions in medical care delivery</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"> It is plausible that telemedicine mitigated some of the effects of a decrease in inpatient care.<o:p></o:p></span></p>.

PMID:35690314 | DOI:10.1016/j.cardfail.2022.05.012