Screening ECG After COVID Infection

The pandemic may be waning, but the lessons from it are still accruing. Investigators from the U.K. examined electrocardiographic abnormalities in 511 elite soccer players who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. They recruited players from 36 clubs in the UK, Brazil, and the Netherlands who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. Their mean age was 21 years and 88% were male. The median time to the post-infection electrocardiogram (ECG) was 11 days, and players had received a pre-infection ECG a median of 239 days earlier.

The investigators identified de-novo ECG changes in 17 (3%) of the athletes. Abnormalities included low-amplitude T waves, flat T waves, or inverted T waves. Of those with de-novo changes, 88% had inflammatory findings on cardio…