Comparison of patients with and without new arrhythmia (overall
arrhythmias)
Comparison of the 28 patients with new arrhythmias with those who did
not experience any arrhythmia is presented in Table 1. Patients with new
arrhythmia were older and had more comorbidities as DM, HTN, IHD and
valvular heart disease. Also, their disease was more significant, with
28.6% and 17.9% of patients categorized as critical or severe disease
in the new arrhythmia group compared with 7.2% and 8.8% in the non
arrhythmia group, respectively (p < 0.001). Among the new
arrhythmia group there were more patients presenting with respiratory
symptoms and lower proportion of patients who had mild illness (14.3%
versus 55%, p < 0.001). The new arrhythmia group patients
were more likely to receive a QT prolonging drug, mostly an
antiarrhythmic agent, while there was no difference regarding percent of
patients on ”anti-COVID” medications as Hydroxychloroquine and/or
Azithromycin. On ECG, the QRS width and QTc were longer in patients with
new arrhythmias and the prevalence of bundle branch block was higher.
Laboratory tests of patients with arrhythmia also reflected a more
severe illness, with higher creatinine, troponin, CRP and D-Dimer
levels. Noteworthy, there was a significantly increased mortality among
the arrhythmia group (32.1% versus 5.5%, p < 0.001).