Why the study?
Patients with severe COVID-19 are known to be at risk for cardiac arrhythmias, but less is known about arrhythmic risk in patients with milder symptoms.
Asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic COVID-19 infection may be associated with severe cardiac arrhythmias, including prolonged asystole requiring pacemaker placement.
Should not yet change post-COVID arrhythmia surveillance; hypothesis-generating for asymptomatic infection causing prolonged asystole.
There is growing evidence that patients with severe systemic illness from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are at risk for developing a variety of cardiac arrhythmias. Less is known about patients with milder symptoms. Here, we report on the case of a 62-year-old male, admitted to the hospital following an episode of syncope, who experienced multiple episodes of cardiac arrest due to asystole lasting up to 30 seconds. History revealed a recent asymptomatic COVID-19 infection, and recurrent episodes of prolonged asystole necessitated permanent pacemaker placement. To our knowledge, this is the first report of an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient experiencing prolonged asystole. Cardiac arrhythmias in asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic COVID-19 patients may be underestimated.
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Needleman et al. (2022) studied this question.
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