key: cord-0921625-kr3bzz6m
authors: Li, Yuman; Li, He; Zhu, Shuangshuang; Xie, Yuji; Zhang, Li; Xie, Mingxing
title: Reply to “Relation among right ventricular dysfunction, lung damage and mortality in patients with COVID-19” and “Right ventricular longitudinal strain: a new prognostic tool for COVID-19?”
date: 2020-07-04
journal: JACC Cardiovasc Imaging
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2020.06.018
sha: 1e8a34f45db67d532cf744a85d11b55d7ae249e1
doc_id: 921625
cord_uid: kr3bzz6m

nan

poor echocardiographic window. Therefore, we had to exclude 24 patients owing to suboptimal image quality. Except for RVLS, RV size and function parameters were measured in these excluded cases. Our study showed that there were no significant differences in RV structure and function parameters between patients included for final analysis and those who were excluded. Therefore, we think the effect of excluding cases on our findings may be negligible.

We agree the comments of Dr. (5), our data suggested that CTPA-confirmed PE was less frequent in this group of patients. Nevertheless, the finding was limited because we did not perform screening CTPA for every patient with DVT.

We agree with Dr. Schiavon's comments about the effect of the timing of echocardiographic study and ventilation on RV echo parameters. In our study, there were 105 patients (87.5%) with oxygen therapy, 6 patients (5%) with non-invasive mechanical ventilation, and 15 patients (12.5%) with invasive mechanical ventilation at the time of echocardiographic examinations. Indeed, two thirds of patients with invasive mechanical ventilation had the worst RV longitudinal strain.

We acknowledge that the proposed cut-off values for RV function are largely within the normal range. Except for the thoughtful explanation proposed by Dr. Schiavon, another important reason may be the small proportion of patients (22%) admitted to the intensive care unit as well as those (12.5%) receiving invasive mechanical ventilation.

Prognostic Value of Right Ventricular Longitudinal Strain in Patients with COVID-19

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