Limitations
- The study was based primarily on a retrospective review of electronic health records, which poses a risk for misclassification.
- Echocardiography was performed without blinding operators to patient clinical status, and echocardiograms were interpreted in a single university hospital system, so were not externally validated.
- Because echocardiograms obtained during hospitalization could not be compared with previous echocardiograms, it could not be determined whether any of the patients had preexisting RV dilation or dysfunction.
- Strain imaging was not feasible in many cases.
Disclosures
- The study received no commercial funding.
- The authors disclosed no financial relationships.
This is a summary of a preprint research study, Association of Right Ventricular Dilation and Dysfunction on Echocardiogram With In-Hospital Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 Compared With Other Acute Respiratory Illness, written by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, department of medicine, and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, division of cardiology. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.