Background: Many patients with COVID-19 have pre-existing cardiovascular (CV) co-morbidities or develop acute heart damage during the course of the disease.
Objectives: To study the risk of COVID-19 infection in the presence of preexisting CV diseases and to describe new CV manifestations during COVID-19.
Methods: A “scoping review” was carried out via PubMed, to synthesize the results of research currently published on this subject.
Results: Patients with cardiovascular disease were at greater risk of developing COVID-19, especially in its severe form. These patients were five to ten times more at risk of death. Cardiac manifestations, de novo, were dominated by acute myocardial damage, defined by a significant elevation of cardiac troponins. These occurred in 7 to 17% of hospitalized patients. The presence of a new heart lesion in patients with COVID-19 was consistently associated with a poor prognosis.
Conclusion: Given the enormous cardiovascular challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the prognostic impact of heart damage, additional research at a high level of evidence will be necessary.