COVID-19 in disorders of pulmonary circulation

Abstract

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has number of cardiovascular implications, including pulmonary circulation disorders. The lack of the evidence limits the current understanding of the disease. Several publications demonstrate not so high prevalence of COVID-19 in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). One of the possible explanations of this phenomenon could be vasodilatation, anti-remodelling, and anti-aggregation effect of specific therapy used in PAH. There are several ways in which the COVID-19 disease may increase the incidence of thromboembolic events which can stay unrecognized if CT angiography is not used in the diagnostic algorithm. The association between COVID-19 and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) development is not able to be assessed at that time because the CTEPH diagnosis is established after at least 3 months of anticoagulation therapy since the previous pulmonary embolism and therefore the time since the pandemic COVID-19 began is too short in majority of countries.