Warsaw Woman Participates In Study On COVID-19, CHD
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Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw resident Sonya Kesler participated in a study looking at the effects of COVID-19 on congenital heart disease (CHD).
CHD is one or more problems with the heart's structure that exist since birth. Congenital means that you're born with the defect. CHD, also called congenital heart defect, can change the way blood flows through your heart, according to mayoclinic.com.
The study, published in Tuesday’s edition of the Journal of American College of Cardiology, looked at the impact of COVID-19 in adults with CHD and to identify risk factors associated with adverse outcomes, according to Dr. George Ephrem, adult congenital heart disease cardiologist at IU Health, who was one of the doctors in the study.
Participants were sent letters to ask if they would participate in the study after it was found out they were diagnosed with COVID.
The study was started around summer 2020, Ephrem said. It involved 56 health centers worldwide, with there being a lot of American centers involved in the study. Participating in the study was over 1,000 CHD patients that had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Kesler said she wanted to participate because Ephrem is pretty persuasive, she loves Jesus and if she can help other people by having participated in the study, she was willing to do it.
They looked at the effects of COVID-19 on CHD after four weeks of having the virus.
Ephrem called the conclusion to the study interesting as CHD patients have complex hearts and are seen as part of the higher-risk population.
The conclusion of the study is that COVID-19 mortality in adults with CHD commensurates with the general population. The most vulnerable patients are those with the worse physiological stage of the disease, such as cyanosis and pulmonary hypertension, whereas anatomic complexity does not appear to predict infection severity, Ephrem said.
It only collected information that was already available, Ephrem said, so there was no additional bloodwork, etc. for the study.
Kesler said the study’s doctors were able to get records from the urgent care she went to. She did some other things like answer some questions from the Ephrem, but “nothing extra.” In all, the she said the study didn’t take up a lot of her time.
The major concern was how sick the patient got, Ephrem said.
Kesler said when she got COVID-19 last year, she had a mild case of it and a little pneumonia. While suffering with COVID-19, she said family and community members drop things off to help her.
Due to the conclusions of the study, “We are now able to give advice to our patients” about how CHD patients should deal with the COVID pandemic in terms of what safety precautions they take. Ephrem said his patients want to live their lives in comfortability and safety.
It may not be the last study done in regards to COVID-19 effects with CHD, and Ephrem said a one-year follow-up and a three-year study on the effects on COVID-19 on CHD patients is being considered.
Kesler said she is in it for the long haul unless something happens in the meantime.
In the meantime, Kesler said she’s found a way to volunteer at a COVID-19 testing site in Goshen. She noted she can’t control what happens in the world around her, but she can “control what I do today.”
