The 2020 football season for several NCAA schools was in jeopardy after reports of myocarditis linked to COVID-19. In an abundance of caution, some schools chose to delay or sit out the season altogether. But an LSU Health New Orleans study shows COVID attacking the heart is not as prevalent as once thought.
“We started our study here in March and April in New Orleans, we started doing lots of autopsies on COVID patients and we discovered there really wasn’t a lymphocytic myocarditis,” said Professor Richard Vander Heide.
LSU Health New Orleans and researchers at John Hopkins gathered reported data of cardiovascular pathological findings from patients in nine countries. Previous studies with larger rates of myocarditis were from MRI data only, not autopsies. Dr. Vander Heide says their study found rates between one and seven percent.
“There have been lots of different small studies that have shown different things, but there hasn’t been a huge study so this was an attempt to get a better idea of how prevalent myocarditis is in COVID,” said Vander Heide.
However, Vander Heide says low rates of myocarditis does not mean individuals infected with COVID are not having cardiovascular issues as a result.
“We are concerned that with the number of people being infected with COVID if there’s no acute effect to COVID maybe’s there a chronic effect on the heart that we don’t know about yet,” said Vander Heide.
The authors of the study also created a checklist for pathologists to use going forward when evaluating COVID in an autopsy for consistency in reporting findings.
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