TIRUCHY: Cardiologists in the city say Covid can affect the heart in a number of ways and that they noticed a marginal rise in the incidents of heart attacks.
“Coronavirus can affect the heart in three ways, myocarditis, an inflammation/ damage in the heart muscle. Second, it can trigger cardiac arrest because blood supply decreases due to clots, and the third is heart attack due to pneumonia, when oxygen supply decreases,” explained Dr Aravindha Kumar, Chief Consultant and Interventional Cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital.
When the heart gets affected after recovery, it can present as a vasculopathy (clot in blood vessels) or coagulopathy, adds Dr Aravindha Kumar.
Some people may go into a hyper coagulable state as a result of Covid. Formation of blood clots in major blood vessels is one of the manifestations of Covid.
“One of the consequences of Covid is increased clotting. When clots occur in the artery leading to the heart, it can trigger a heart attack, when it occurs in the artery leading to lungs, it can cause a pulmonary embolism. If it happens in the brain, it can cause stroke. When we do the screening for patients with heart attack, we are finding many to be Covid positive,” said Dr Senthil Kumar Nallusamy, Cardiologist, Rana Hospital.
Doctors say that when the patient has no co-morbidities and is young, the heart attack is being caused due to Covid and not the other way around.
“We are seeing complications in Covid patients. I have seen at least 10 patients between 40-50 with heart attacks after recovering from Covid in the past 2 months. They all had no co-morbidities,” said Dr M Ashok, Senior cardiology consultant, Velan Specialty Hospital.
As prevention, doctors at MGMGH and some private hospitals are testing the D-dimer and if it is above a certain level, prescribing blood thinning agents for 4-6 weeks.
With people having heart problems and other co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, cardiologists say early diagnosis can help prevent complications.
Clots in major blood vessels
Some people may go into a hyper coagulable state as a result of Covid. Formation of blood clots in major
blood vessels is one of the manifestations of Covid.