High-dose vitamin C ameliorates cardiac injury in COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective cohort study
Guozhi Xia, Bowen Qin, Chaoran Ma, Yaowu Zhu, Qiangsun Zheng
Background: Cardiac injury is common and associated with poor clinical outcomes in COVID-19. Data are lacking whether high-dose intravenous vitamin C (HIVC) could help to ameliorate myocardial injury in the pandemic. Methods: The retrospective cohort study included consecutive severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients with cardiac injury receiving symptomatic supportive treatments alone or together with HIVC. Troponin I and inflammatory markers were collected at admission and day 21 during hospitalization from the electronic medical records. Results: The patients (n = 113) were categorized into the ameliorated cardiac injury (ACI) group (n = 70) and the non-ameliorated cardiac injury (NACI) group (n = 43). Overall, fifty-one (45.1%) patients were administered with HIVC, the percentages of patients with HIVC were higher in the ACI group than those in the NACI group. Logistic regression analysis revealed that HIVC was independently associated with the improvement of myocardial injury. Further analysis showed that inflammatory markers levels significantly decreased at day 21 during hospitalization in patients with HIVC therapy compared to those administered with symptomatic supportive treatments alone. Meanwhile, similar results were also observed regarding changes in inflammatory markers levels from baseline to day 21 during hospitalization in the patients treated with HIVC. Conclusions: HIVC can ameliorate cardiac injury through alleviating hyperinflammation in severe and critically ill patients with COVID-19.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Xia G conceived and designed of the study. Xia G and Zhu Y collected the clinical data and laboratory values. Xia G and Ma C drafted the article. Xia G and Qin B conducted the statistical analysis and interpreted the data. Zheng Q provided valuable guidance in every stage of the writing of this thesis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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