Intensive care and anesthetic management of patients with Brugada syndrome and COVID-19 infection

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads across the world, and the intensive care unit (ICU) community must prepare for the challenges associated with this pandemic viral infection. Rapid diagnosis, isolation, and intensive clinical management are very important for all patients with COVID-19, especially for those with cardiac diseases as Brugada syndrome (BrS). BrS is an arrhythmogenic disease reported to be one among the leading causes of sudden cardiac death. In these patients, episodes of lethal arrhythmias may be induced by several factors or situations, and for this reason management during ICU permanence or anesthesia must provide some precautions, avoiding factors that are known to have the potential to worsen the probability to induce arrhythmias. For ICU practitioners, management of acute respiratory failure, hemodynamics, and cardiovascular complications certainly are the key for the best treatment of these patients but to date specific data on supportive ICU care for these patients are lacking, and current recommendations are based on existing evidence from other viral infections and general intensive care management. We want to focus on some general rules, resulted from cases series and clinical practice, to be followed during the ICU management of patients with BrS and concomitant COVID-19 infection.