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).