IMR Press / RCM / Volume 23 / Issue 11 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2311355
Open Access Review
CMR Findings in COVID-19 Recovered Patients: A Review on Parametric Mapping, Feature-Tracking, and LGE
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1 International Clinical Research Center at St. Anne's University Hospital, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic
2 1st Department of Internal Medicine/Cardioangiology at St. Anne's University Hospital, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic
3 Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, 62500 Bohunice, Czech Republic
4 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Brno University of Technology, 61600 Brno, Czech Republic
*Correspondence: panovsky@fnusa.cz (Roman Panovský)
Academic Editor: Jerome L. Fleg
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2022, 23(11), 355; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2311355
Submitted: 10 August 2022 | Revised: 26 September 2022 | Accepted: 27 September 2022 | Published: 21 October 2022
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization raised the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) status to a pandemic level. The disease caused a global outbreak with devastating consequences, and a fair percentage of patients who have recovered from it continue experiencing persistent sequelae. Hence, identifying the medium and long-term effects of the COVID-19 disease is crucial for its future management. In particular, cardiac complications, from affected function to myocardial injuries, have been reported in these patients. Considering that cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is the gold standard in diagnosing myocardial involvement and has more advantages than other medical imaging modalities, assessing the outcomes of patients who recovered from COVID-19 with CMR could prove beneficial. This review compiles common findings in CMR in patients from the general population who recovered from COVID-19. The CMR-based techniques comprised parametric mapping for analyzing myocardial composition, feature tracking for studying regional heart deformation, and late gadolinium enhancement for detecting compromised areas in the cardiac muscle. A total of 19 studies were included. The evidence suggests that it is more likely to find signs of myocardial injury in patients who recovered from COVID-19 than in healthy controls, including changes in T1 and T2 mapping relaxation times, affected strain, or the presence of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) lesions. However, more than two years after the outbreak, there is still a lack of consensus about how these parameters may indicate cardiac involvement in patients who recovered from the disease, as limited and contradictory data is available.

Keywords
magnetic resonance image
SARS-CoV-2
parametric mapping
feature tracking
late gadolinium enhancement
Funding
NU22-A-121/Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic
Figures
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