New coronavirus infection in patients with chronic heart failure: clinical features in different periods of the pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a wave-like process for several years, with each period of increased incidence differing in the rate of spread, the degree of contagiousness of the virus, the population receiving outpatient and inpatient treatment, the characteristics of the clinical picture and the outcomes of the disease.

Objective: to analyze the clinical features of COVID-19 and chronic heart failure (CHF) of ischemic genesis in different periods of increased incidence (2020–2021 and 2022–2023).

Materials and methods: A simple comparative retrospective study included 78 patients hospitalized in the pulmonology department of the Omsk City Clinical Emergency Hospital No. 2 with confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19 and CHF of ischemic genesis, group 1 – 36 patients hospitalized in the period 2020–2021, group 2 – 42 patients treated in 2022–2023.

Results and conclusions: Patients with CHF hospitalized in the period 2022–2023. New coronavirus infection (NCVI) were significantly older than in the period 2020-2021. In 2022–2023, a statistically significantly smaller number of hospitalized patients with CHF had manifestations of respiratory and general intoxication syndromes, 47,62% of patients did not report an increase in body temperature, 30% did not report a decrease in blood saturation >95%, in contrast to the period 2020–2021. However, a marked decrease in physical activity, the presence of tachycardia at normal body temperature, the appearance of pastosity of the shins in patients with CHF in the period 2022–2023 can be considered precisely as a manifestation of CHF decompensation, which became the main reason for hospitalization. Patients with CHF with the development of NCVI in both 2020–2021 and 2022–2023 represent a high-risk group for CHF decompensation, requiring intensive monitoring of respiratory manifestations of NCVI while simultaneously monitoring CHF symptoms to develop individualized approaches to treatment and rehabilitation during the period of viral infection and subsequent minimization of early and late complications.