Correspondence on 'Characteristics associated with hospitalisation for COVID-19 in people with rheumatic disease: data from the COVID-19 global rheumatology alliance physician-reported registry by Gianfrancesco M et al. The impact of cardiovascular comorbidity on COVID-19 infection in a large cohort of rheumatoid arthritis patients

We read with interest the paper published by Gianfrancesco et al1 describing the epidemiological findings associated with hospitalisation for COVID-19 in 600 patients with rheumatic diseases. Multivariate adjusted models proved a significant increased risk of hospitalisation for older age (>65 years), prednisone doses of ≥10 mg/day and presence of comorbidities, such as cardiovascular (CV) and lung diseases or diabetes. The use of biological or targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) appeared to decrease hospitalisation risk. Underlying CV comorbidities seem to increase the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and to contribute to myocardial injury, arrhythmia, acute coronary syndrome and venous thromboembolism also in non-rheumatic patients.2 3 Pathophysiological mechanisms underlying cardiac injury in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection are poorly understood. However, biological features of SARS-CoV-2 and its interaction with the immune system seem to have a pivotal role in organ damage and, in particular, in CV manifestations.
Source: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases - Category: Rheumatology Authors: Tags: ARD, COVID-19 Correspondence Source Type: research