Management principles in patients with COVID-19: perspectives from a growing global experience with emphasis on cardiovascular surveillance

Veldtman, Gruschen R; Pirisi, Mario; Storti, Enrico; Roomi, Asad; Fadl-Elmula, Fadl Elmula M; Vriz, Olga; Bokhari, Sabahat; Ammash, Naser; Salam, Yezan; Liu, Guang Zong; Spinelli, Stefano; Barbieri, Greta; Hashmi, Shahrukh

The COVID-19, due to SARS-CoV-2, has uncovered many real-world issues when it comes to healthcare management and has led to a widespread mortality. Observations thus far from the reports of COVID-19 have indicated that certain risk groups for example, those with pre-existing cardiovascular (CV) disease, hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and tobacco use are prone to disease development and specifically development of severe disease and possible fatality. It is increasingly evident that many CV conditions occur frequently. These include myopericarditis, acute coronary syndromes, thrombosis, arrhythmias, hypertension and heart failure. Many professional organisations and societies related to cardiology have produced guidelines or recommendations on most of the above-mentioned aspects. Given these rapid developments, the aims of this review manuscript were to summarise and integrate recent publications with newly developed guidelines and with the first-hand experience of frontline physicians and to yield a pragmatic insight and approach to CV complications of COVID-19. We emphasise on a strategic tier-based approach for initial assessment and management of COVID-19, and then delve into focused areas within CV domains, and additionally highlighting the role of point-of-care ultrasound especially lung ultrasound, echocardiography and electrocardiography, in the management of these patients. We hope this paper will serve as a useful tool in the CV management of COVID-19 for clinicians practicing in both developing and developed countries.