Left Ventricular Performance in Patients With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome A 30-Day Echocardiographic Follow-Up Study

Background— Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is characterized by an overaggressive immune response. Myocardial performance may be impaired in cytokine-mediated immune reactions. Methods and Results— Forty-six patients with established clinical diagnosis of SARS were studied prospectively. Transthoracic echocardiographic examinations were done at the acute stage of infection and 30 days later. Among them, 14 patients required mechanical ventilation. The clinical course, laboratory data, SARS-CoV antibody titers, and results of reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction were studied. Significantly higher left ventricular index of myocardial performance (IMP) (0.42±0.13 versus 0.33±0.09, P<0.001), longer isovolumic relaxation time (102.9±15.7 versus 81.6±14.7 ms, P<0.001), lower flow propagation velocity (69.6±15.7 versus 83.8±19.7 cm/s, P=0.011), and Doppler-derived cardiac output (4.69±1.01 versus 5.49±1.04 L/min, P<0.001) were observed during acute infection when compared with those at 30 day...