Publication date: Feb 04, 2025

Studies have shown an increased risk of cardiac disease following COVID-19, but how it compares to pneumonia of other etiologies is unclear. To determine the incidence and HRs of cardiac disease in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 compared with other viral or bacterial pneumonias. Using nationwide registry data, we estimated the incidence of cardiac events after hospitalisation with COVID-19 (n=2082) in February to November 2020 vs hospitalisation with viral (n=9018) or bacterial (n=29 339) pneumonia in 2018-2019. We defined outcomes using ICD-10 codes for incident myocarditis, acute myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation/flutter, heart failure, ischaemic heart disease, other cardiac disease and total cardiac disease (any heart condition). We used Cox regression and logistic regression for analysis. Patients with COVID-19 had a mean (SD) age of 60 (18) years, compared with 69 (19) years for viral and 72 (17) years for bacterial pneumonia. Those with COVID-19 were more often male and had fewer comorbidities and fewer prior hospitalisations. Patients with COVID-19 had a lower hazard of new-onset cardiac disease compared with viral (HR 0. 79 [95%CI 0. 66 to 0. 93]) and bacterial pneumonia (HR 0. 66 [95%CI 0. 57 to 0. 78]), adjusted for age, sex, comorbidity, hospital admission prior year and respiratory support. Results were similar when including recurrent events. Patients hospitalised with COVID-19 had a lower hazard of new-onset cardiac disease during the first 9 months after hospitalisation compared with patients with other viral or bacterial pneumonias after adjusting for multiple possible confounders. However, there may still be residual confounding from other or unknown factors.

Open Access PDF

Semantics

Original Article