In this newsletter we recommend the article entitled “Accelerated vascular ageing after COVID-19 infection: the CARTESIAN study “ recently published in European Heart Journal as a clinical research.
Authors hypothesized that COVID-19 survivors would experience accelerated vascular ageing, proportional to the severity of the infection.

The CARTESIAN study is the first international multicenter study on the long-term effects of COVID-19 on non-invasive biomarkers of vascular ageing. The main objective of the CARTESIAN study was to evaluate the presence of accelerated vascular ageing after COVID-19 infection. The primary end-point was carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), an established biomarker of arterial stiffness and vascular ageing.
Recruitment took place from September 2020 to February 2022, the study comprised of) a control group of individuals who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection and three groups of individuals with recent (6 ± 3 months) documented exposure to SARS-CoV-2; patients with confirmed infection by SARS-CoV-2, not requiring hospitalisation (symptomatic or not); patients with confirmed infection by SARS-CoV-2, requiring hospitalisation but not admission to an intensive care unit (ICU); and patients with confirmed infection by SARS-CoV-2, requiring hospitalisation in an ICU.  

Results were as follows: 2390 individuals (age 50 ± 15 years, 49.2% women) were recruited. After adjustment for confounders, all COVID-19-positive groups showed higher PWV (+0.41, +0.37, and +0.40 m/s for groups 2–4, P < .001, P = .001 and P = .003) vs. controls [PWV 7.53 (7.09; 7.97) m/s adjusted mean (95% CI)]. In sex-stratified analyses, PWV differences were significant in women   but not in men. Among COVID-19 positive women, persistent symptoms were associated with higher PWV, regardless of disease severity and cardiovascular confounders. A stable or improved PWV after 12 months was found in the COVID+ groups, whereas a progression was observed in the COVID− group

As a conclusion and as Key finding authors conclude that after adjustment for confounders, COVID19-positive individuals showed higher pulse wave velocity (PWV) as compared to COVID19-negative individuals 6 months after COVID19.  In sex-stratified analyses, increased PWV was present in women, but not in men. Early vascular ageing persisted, though attenuated, 12 months after COVID19.