الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract More than eight billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally so far and 44.29% of people are fully vaccinated. Pre-authorization clinical trials were carried out and the safety of vaccines is still continuously monitored through post-commercialization surveillance. However, some people are afraid of vaccine side effects, claiming they could lead to death, and hesitate to get vaccinated. Although myocarditis and pericarditis were not observed as adverse events in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine trials, there have been numerous reports of suspected cases following vaccination in the general population. Aim and methods: The aim of the study is to detect any evidence of myocardial damage after COVID-19 vaccination. To elucidate this aim 150 subjects (both sexes) randomized into two groups as 75 patients who are fully vaccinated with the two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and 75 patients who are not vaccinated. A full transthoracic echocardiographic study, according to the American Society of Echocardiographic Guidelines (with the calculation of the Global Longitudinal Strain), was done for all patients. Summary and Conclusion 55 Results of the study: This study was carried on 150 patients, 52 (34.7%) of whom were females, and 98 (65.3%) were males. The mean age of the studied groups was (34 years old). None of studied group were diabetic, hypertensive, nor dyslipidemic. As regarding the comparison between the two groups in the demographic data, both groups were matched as regards of the age, sex distribution, and the body surface area. The incidence of smoking showed no significant difference between both groups. As regarding the Echocardiographic data; the EF mean of 63.2% in the study group and 62.9% in the control group, the `S on MV mean of 9.5cm/sec in the study group and 9.9cm/sec in the control group, and the GLS median of -19% in the study group and -19% in the control group (and these results are considered normal with no significant difference in between the study and the control group). Conclusion Myocardial complications are infrequent and do not affect the global risk/ benefit assessment of COVID-19 vaccines. Nevertheless, the advantages of these vaccines for ending the pandemic and/or decreasing the mortality rate outweigh any risk for the rare cardiovascular complications. Summary and Conclusion 56 Recommendation: Further research is needed to our understanding more the nature of COVID-19 vaccination role in the occurrence of myocardial damage. It is now important to move forward into the area of prevention and to more aggressive treatments for high-risk groups in patients with COVID-19. Limitations This study has several limitations; First, in the current study we used AztraZeneca vaccine only and the results could be different with other vaccines. Second, we got 150 patients which is relatively a small number. Third, we only used one modality in diagnosing myocarditis (which is transthoracic echocardiography with GLS calculation). |