Introduction
Pulmonary coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a multifaceted viral infection with subsequent immunologic complications not only engaging the respiratory system but also with more studies emerging, more details are being discovered about the potential maladies inflicts upon many organs and systems of the body (1). The spectrum of COVID-19 infection spans from mild, self-limiting respiratory tract sickness to fatal progressive pneumonia and multiorgan failure (2, 3).
A variety of cardiac complications, comprising of stress-induced myocarditis, acute myocardial infarction, acute failure of right and left ventricles with subsequent elevations in right ventricular afterload as a result of pulmonary embolism or pneumonia, tamponade, and cardiomyopathy, have been reported in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the acute phase of the disease (4, 5). It has been suggested that cardiac problems are frequent (20 to 25%) with COVID-19 infection and are associated with in-hospital mortality. In those reports, cardiac problems were determined only based on clinical and laboratory data (e.g., troponin levels) and without systematic cardiac imaging (6).
Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the principal imaging modality for the evaluation of the heart, which is a widely accessible and inexpensive tool. Echocardiography has been remarkably useful in assessing the aforementioned complications throughout the era of COVID-19 (7). However, studies concerning the long-term cardiac effects of this infection in non-hospitalized patients have remained scarce (5).
In this study, we aimed to evaluate the long-term alterations of echocardiographic findings in health care workers of a tertiary center who are young, productive, and without prior cardiac complications based on their clinical COVID-19 severity six months after being diagnosed with COVID-19 infection.